The Employees' Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) has released provisional payroll data for March 2025, revealing a net addition of 14.58 lakh members. The year-on-year analysis reveals an increase of 1.15% in net payroll additions compared to March 2024, signifying increased employment opportunities and heightened awareness of employee benefits, bolstered by EPFO’s effective outreach initiatives.

Key highlights of the EPFO Payroll Data (March 2025) are as follows:

New Subscribers:

EPFO enrolled around 7.54 lakh new subscribers in March 2025, representing a 2.03% increase over February 2025 and 0.98% year over year growth compared to the previous year in March 2024. This growth in new subscribers can be attributed to growing employment opportunities, increased awareness of employee benefits, and EPFO's successful outreach programs.

Age Group 18-25 Leads Payroll Addition:

A noticeable aspect of the data is the dominance of the 18-25 age group, 4.45 lakh new subscribers added in the 18-25 age group, constituting a significant 58.94% of the total new subscribers added in March 2025. New subscribers in the 18-25 age group added in the month show an increase of 4.21% compared to the previous month of February 2025. It also depicts a growth of 4.73% from the previous year in March 2024.

Further, the net payroll addition for the age group 18-25 for March 2025 is approximately 6.68 lakh reflecting a growth of 6.49% from the previous year in March 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.

Rejoined Members:

Approximately 13.23 lakh members, who had exited earlier, rejoined EPFO in March 2025. This figure depicts a 0.39% increase over February 2025. It also shows a significant 12.17% year-over-year growth compared to March 2024. These members switched their jobs and re-joined the establishments covered under the ambit of EPFO and opted to transfer their accumulations instead of applying for final settlement thus safeguarding long-term financial well-being and extending their social security protection.

Growth in Female Membership:

Around 2.08 lakhs new female subscribers joined EPFO in March 2025. It reflects an increase of 0.18% compared to the previous month of February 2025. It also depicts year-over-year growth of 4.18% compared to March 2024.

Further, the net female payroll addition during the month stood at around 2.92 lakh, with a year over year growth of 0.78% compared to March 2024. The growth in female member additions is indicative of a broader shift towards a more inclusive and diverse workforce.

State-wise Contribution:

State-wise analysis of payroll data denotes that the top five states/ UTs constitute around 59.67% of net payroll addition, adding a total around 8.70 lakh net payroll during the month. Of all the states, Maharashtra is leading by adding 20.24% of net payroll during the month. The states/UTs of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Haryana, Gujarat, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana individually added more than 5% of the total net payroll during the month.

Industry-wise Trends:

Month-on-month comparison of industry-wise data displays significant growth in the net payroll addition working in establishments engaged in the industries viz.

1. RESTAURANTS
2. CEMENT
3. GENERAL INSURANCE
4. CANTEENS
5. FORWARDING AGENCY
6. TRAVEL AGENCIES
7. HOTEL.

Of the total net payroll addition, around 45.59% addition is from expert services (consisting of manpower suppliers, normal contractors, security services, miscellaneous activities etc.

The above payroll data is provisional since data generation is a continuous exercise, as updating employee record is a continuous process. The previous data gets updated every month on account of:

1. ECRs being filed for previous months after generation of payroll report.
2. ECRs filed earlier being modified after generation of payroll reports.
3. Date of exit from EPF membership for previous months being updated after generation of payroll report.                                             

From the month of April 2018, EPFO has been releasing payroll data covering the period September 2017 onwards. In monthly payroll data, the count of members joining EPFO for the first time through Aadhaar validated Universal Account Number (UAN), existing members exiting from coverage of EPFO and those who exited but re-joined as members, is taken to arrive at net monthly payroll.

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Manish Gautam/Divyanshu Kumar