EPFO data shows employment dip

In December 2022, the Em­ployees’ Provident Fund Or­g­anisation (EPFO) released its annual report for 2021-22. According to this, 46.34 million members contributed to the EPFO during 2021-22. This was 0.06 million higher than the 46.28 million contribu­ting me­m­bers in 2020-21. The la­tter est­imate is sourced from the prev­ious year’s EPFO annual report.

The 46.34 million contribu­ting members in 2021-22 is much lower than the 48.92 mill­ion contributing members seen in the pre-pandemic year of 2019-20. Evidently, formal sect­or employment measured thro­ugh EPFO contributions had not recovered to its pre-pandemic levels till at least 2021-22. It had declined by 5.3 per cent.