The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on Wednesday said it had registered a growth of 3.18 lakh new subscribers in May, indicating that “net new enrolments have started to make headway for most industry classifications”.
According to the provisional payroll data published by the EPFO on Monday, the month-on-month increase in subscribers had been 218%.
“Despite the lockdown, around 1 lakh net new subscribers were added to social security schemes of the EPFO in April 2020...The subscriber base growth is on account of increased number of new subscribers, lower exits and higher rejoining by exited members. The new subscriber joining has increased roughly by 66% from 1.67 lakh in April to 2.79 lakh in May. In addition, the exits from the subscriber base declined by nearly 20% from 2.97 lakh in April to 2.36 lakh in May,” it said.
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It said the number of members exiting and then re-joining indicated switching of jobs.
Category-wise analysis
“Category-wise analysis of industry indicates that building and construction sector, hotels, transport; electrical, mechanical or general engineering products; education and textiles were adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in April,” it said.
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The EPFO said all these sectors, apart from education, had shown some growth in May, with export services that consist of manpower agencies, private security and small contractors recorded 125% month-on-month growth and addition of 1.8 lakh net new subscribers.
“New establishments — 8,367 — also witnessed a growth of around 72% in May compared to 4,853 in April,” it said.