The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has released provisional payroll data for February 2025, revealing a net addition of 16.10 lakh members. The year-on-year analysis reveals a growth of 3.99% in net payroll additions compared to February 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 (February 2025) are as follows:

New subscribers

EPFO enrolled around 7.39 lakh new subscribers in February 2025. This addition of new subscribers can be attributed to growing employment opportunities, increased awareness of employee benefits, and EPFO's successful outreach programs, per the PIB press release.

Age Group 18-25 leads payroll addition

A noticeable aspect of the data is the dominance of the 18-25 age group, 4.27 lakh new subscribers added in the 18-25 age group, constituting a significant 57.71% of the total new subscribers added in February 2025. This is in consonance with the earlier trend, which indicates that most individuals joining the organised workforce are youth, primarily first-time job seekers.

Further, the net payroll addition for the age group 18-25 for February 2025 is approximately 6.78 lakh, reflecting a growth of 3.01% from the previous year in February 2024.

Rejoined members

Approximately 13.18 lakh members, who had exited earlier, rejoined EPFO in February 2025. This figure depicts a significant 11.85% year-over-year growth compared to February 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, per the PIB press release.

Growth in female membership

Around 2.08 lakhs new female subscribers joined EPFO in February 2025. It depicts year-over-year growth of 1.26% compared to February 2024.

Further, the net female payroll addition during the month stood at around 3.37 lakh, a significant year-over-year growth of 9.23% compared to February 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 59.75% of net payroll addition, adding a total of around 9.62 lakh net payroll during the month. Of all the states, Maharashtra is leading by adding 20.90% of net payroll during the month. The states/UTs of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, Haryana, Delhi, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh individually added more than 5% of the total net payroll during the month.

Of the total net payroll addition, around 41.72% addition is from expert services (consisting of manpower suppliers, normal contractors, security services, miscellaneous activities, etc.).

The payroll data provided is provisional, as data generation is an ongoing process, with employee records being continuously updated. The previous data is revised every month due to several factors: ECRs (Electronic Challan-cum-Return) for earlier months being filed after the payroll report is generated, modifications made to previously filed ECRs after report generation, and updates to the date of exit from EPF membership for prior months following the generation of the payroll report, per the PIB press release.