The government’s flagship social security scheme added 1.93 million members in June 2023, a 7.9 percent increase from the previous year, data released by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation showed.
The EPFO scheme recorded 1.03 million new employees during this period—an increase of 4 percent over the previous month and 1 percent increase over the previous year.
“A noticeable aspect of the data is the dominance of the 18-25 age group, constituting a significant 59.14 percent of the total new members added in June 2024. This is in consonance with the earlier trend which indicates that most individuals joining the organized workforce are youth, primarily first-time job seekers,” the release stated.
Data released by EPF showed a rise in female employment as well during the month, which rose 5.88 percent over the previous year.
Nearly 300,000 women were added in the month, accounting for nearly 30 percent of new employee addition.
“State-wise analysis of payroll data denotes that net member addition is highest in the five states/ UTs of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Haryana. These states constitute around 61.16 percent of net member addition, adding a total of 1.18 million net members during the month. Of all the states, Maharashtra is leading by adding 21.09 percent of net members during the month,” the report said.
Data released by the government earlier this month showed that urban unemployment had declined to 6.6 percent in the first quarter of the fiscal FY25 compared with 6.7 percent in Q4FY24.
Female unemployment, however, had increased during this period.
EPF is used as a proxy to ascertain formal job addition, along with Employees’ State Insurance Corporation scheme and the National Pension Scheme.
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