According to the latest payroll data published by the
Employment Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) , the net generation of employment in the formal sector shot up to a maximum of 17 months, reaching 8.96 lakh jobs in the month of January. The EPFO has been releasing payroll data since April 2018 covering the period beginning in September 2017. The number of EPFO subscribers was 131 percent higher in January 2019 compared to January 2018, when only 3.87 lakh of EPFO subscribers were added.
According to the data, a total of 2.75,609 jobs were created in September 2017 and about 76.48 lakh of new subscribers were added to the EPFO social security schemes between September 2017 and January 2019. of the payroll have experienced a slight decrease (1.8%) in December 2018, stopping at 7.03 lakh compared to the estimate of 7.16 lakh published the previous month. For the period from September 2017 to December 2018, the EPFO revised the accumulated data from the sum of jobs by 6.6 percent to 67.52 lakh compared to the forecast of 72.32 lakh.
As the last month of the financial year, March 2018 experienced the largest decline with 29,023 members leaving the EPFO subscription, against the estimated addition of 5,498 members last month. During January 2019, the largest number of jobs was created in the age group of 22 to 25 years, which was 2.44 lakh jobs. This was followed by 2.24 lakh jobs in the age range of 18-21 years.
According to the EPFO, the data of the departed members are based on the individual claims and establishments and the data loaded by the employers, while the data of the new subscribers are based on the Universal Account Number (UAN) generated in the system and those who have received a non-zero subscription.
The EPFO data is provisional, since the employees’ records are updated as a regular process and they are updated in the following months.