Sluggish Recruitment:

• Subscriptions under 3 major schemes- EPF, ESI and NPS
• Gross new member addition still below pre-Covid level

New Delhi: Retirement fund body EPFO’s gross new subscribers addition declined by over four per cent to 1.09 crore in 2023-24 compared to a year ago, as per a report by Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI).According to the report ‘Payroll Reporting in India: An Employment Perspective –January to April 2024’, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) recorded 1,09,93,119 gross addition of new members in 2023-24 compared to 1,14,98,453 in 2022-23.

The gross addition of new members was affected due to the pandemic and declined from 1,10,40,683 in 2019-20 to 85,48,898 in 2020-21. It bounced back to 1,08,65,063 in 2021-22. The Centre as well as States had imposed lockdown restriction in 2020 and 2021 to curb the spread of deadly coronavirus in the country, which had hit economic activities as well as employment. The data shows that in the last five fiscal years till 2023-24, the gross new members addition by EFPO had not recovered to pre-Covid level of 2018-19.

The gross addition of new members was 1,39,44,349 in 2018-19.