27.5% of new EPFO members women, July enrolment highest in 12 months

NEW DELHI: The Employees Provident Fund Organisation's (EPFO) payroll data for July has indicated marginal recovery in the employment situation for women and youths. The data showed the EPFI added 18.2 lakh net members in July, an increase of 24.5%, and gender-wise analysis of the payroll data indicates that enrolment of net female members has been 4.1 lakh during the month. Year-on-year comparison of enrolment data shows that new membership of females in the organised workforce has increased by 34.8% in July, compared with the year earlier month.

Among the total new members joining the EPFO during the month, enrollment of female workforce was estimated at 27.5%, the highest in the last 12 months. "This indicates that female participation is rising in the organised workforce with respect to new members joining the EPFO," according to an official statement.

Of the total 18.2 lakh members added during the month, around 10.6 lakh new members have come under the social security cover of EPFO for the first time. The data of new members joining EPFO has shown a growing trend since April this year.

Out of 10.6 lakh new members added, about 57.7% were from the age-group of 18-25. "This shows that first-time job seekers are joining the organised sector workforce in large numbers following their education, and new jobs in the organised sector are largely going to the youth of the country," according to the official statement.

The classification of industry-wise payroll data indicates that mainly two categories 'expert services' (consisting of manpower agencies, private security agencies and small contractors, etc) and 'Trading-Commercial establishments' constitute 46.2% of total member addition during the month. Comparing industry-wise data with that of the previous month, higher enrolments have been noticed in industries namely, 'Schools', 'Building & Construction Industry', 'Financing Establishment', according to the statement.

It said that during the month, around 4.1 lakh members exited from the ambit of EPFO and 11.7 lakh members exited and rejoined EPFO. These members have chosen to retain their membership through transfer of funds rather than opting for final settlement. This may be attributed to various e-initiatives taken by EPFO for seamless and uninterrupted service delivery, according to the statement.

The payroll data is often used as a proxy for new jobs. According to the statement the payroll data is provisional since the data generation is a continuous exercise, as updation of employee records is a continuous process. The previous data hence gets updated every month.