Until 2017 India had no monthly count of formal-sector hiring. On 25 April 2018 EPFO, ESIC and the pension regulator released payroll data for the first time, for September 2017 to February 2018; EPFO's share of it was 31.10 lakh new additions across all age groups, which the release itself called "a conservative estimate". Since then EPFO has published the series every month, always covering the period from September 2017 onwards. The first, part-year entry — 15,52,940 net additions for September 2017 to March 2018 — is not comparable with the full years that follow. Net additions were 61,12,223 in 2018-19 and 78,58,394 in 2019-20, dipped to 77,08,375 in the pandemic year 2020-21, then rose to 1,22,34,625 in 2021-22 and 1,38,51,689 in 2022-23.
Formal Jobs · EPFO Payroll
The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation runs India's main provident fund, pension and insurance schemes for employees of covered establishments. Since April 2018 it has published monthly payroll data going back to September 2017, and the net addition in these numbers is used by the government as an indicator of how far the job market is becoming formal. The counter shows net payroll additions to EPFO for each financial year, in lakh. The first point covers only September 2017 to March 2018. This is a count of movements in and out of EPFO membership, not a count of total employment in India — for that the government's own official source is the Periodic Labour Force Survey.
| Year | Net EPFO payroll additions |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 15.53 lakh |
| 2019 | 61.12 lakh |
| 2020 | 78.58 lakh |
| 2021 | 77.08 lakh |
| 2022 | 122.35 lakh |
| 2023 | 138.52 lakh |
| 2024 | 131.48 lakh |
Why it matters A job inside EPFO's net comes with a provident fund, a pension under EPS-95 and life insurance under EDLI — protections most Indian workers still do not have. Tracking how many members are added each year, and how many of them are young or women, is the closest regular measure the government publishes of formal-sector hiring, so long as it is read for what it is.
- A 'net addition' is first-time joiners through an Aadhaar-validated UAN, plus members who had exited and rejoined, minus members exiting EPFO coverage (PIB, 20 May 2023)
- The 2017-18 figure of 15,52,940 covers only September 2017 to March 2018, so it is not comparable with the full years after it
- Highest financial year on the published series: 1,38,51,689 in 2022-23, followed by 1,31,48,204 in 2023-24; for 2024-25 the ministry states 'over 1.29 crore net subscribers'
- In July 2025, 61.06% of new EPFO subscribers were aged 18-25; in 2024-25, 26.9 lakh net female subscribers were added
- The figures are provisional and the previous months' data gets updated every month, so published numbers move over time (PIB, 21 May 2025)
- EPFO reported around 7.98 crore contributing members across about 7.68 lakh contributing establishments in September 2026
History
Notable milestone
The highest financial year on the published series is 2022-23, at 1,38,51,689 net additions; announcing it on 20 May 2023 the ministry put it as "around 1.39 crore net members", an increase of 13.22% over 2021-22. 2023-24 followed at 1,31,48,204. For 2024-25 the ministry has stated "over 1.29 crore net subscribers", along with 26.9 lakh net female subscribers for that year. The strongest single month on the series was June 2025, at 21.89 lakh net additions — described by EPFO as "the highest recorded addition since payroll data tracking began in April 2018" — followed by 21.04 lakh in July 2025, of which 9.79 lakh were new subscribers and 61.06% of those were aged 18-25.
How it works — and what the number does not measure
EPFO builds the monthly figure from three counts: members joining EPFO for the first time through an Aadhaar-validated Universal Account Number, existing members exiting EPFO coverage, and those who had exited and are rejoining. The three are combined to give the net monthly payroll. So a net addition is not a count of new jobs. It already subtracts exits, and it counts people who changed employer and transferred their accumulations rather than settling them — in March 2025, for example, about 13.23 lakh members rejoined against 7.54 lakh first-time joiners. The scope is narrow by design: the EPF & MP Act, 1952 covers establishments employing 20 or more persons, with a statutory wage ceiling of ₹15,000 a month for mandatory coverage (₹25,000 from 17 September 2026). India's official source on employment and unemployment is not this series but the Periodic Labour Force Survey, run by MoSPI since 2017-18. The government's own payroll report says as much: it "gives different perspectives on the levels of employment in the formal sector and does not measure employment at a holistic level". Finally, the numbers are provisional — records are updated continuously and "the previous data gets updated every month", so a month's figure can move well after it is first published.
Outlook
The published series has stalled: EPFO's last monthly payroll release covers July 2025 and was issued on 23 September 2025, and the Economic Survey 2025-26 cites EPFO figures only up to July of FY26. Two policy changes now bear on what the series would show. The Pradhan Mantri Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana, the Employment Linked Incentive scheme approved by the Cabinet on 1 July 2025 with an outlay of ₹99,446 crore, pays first-time EPF members up to ₹15,000 in two instalments and employers up to ₹3,000 a month for each additional employee kept on for at least six months; registration runs from 1 August 2025 to 31 July 2027 and the scheme targets more than 3.5 crore jobs. On 19 June 2026 the Prime Minister disbursed about ₹2,400 crore under it, with 70 lakh first-time employees brought into the formal workforce since August 2025. Second, the Cabinet on 16 September 2026 raised the EPFO wage ceiling from ₹15,000 to ₹25,000 a month with effect from 17 September 2026, the first change since September 2014, which the ministry expects to bring more than 51 lakh additional employees into mandatory coverage. As a second measure of formalisation, ESIC's own payroll data recorded 20.36 lakh new workers in July 2025, and the ESI scheme covered 3.84 crore insured persons as on 31 March 2025.
Data current to: financial year 2023-24 — the last year with an official financial-year total (table published June 2025)
Source: Ministry of Labour & Employment, 'Payroll Data of EPFO' (table published on labour.gov.in, June 2025) — net payroll additions to EPFO per financial year, converted to lakh from the exact figures in that one table: 15,52,940 (2017-18, which the table labels 'from Sep-17' and so covers only September 2017 to March 2018), 61,12,223 (2018-19), 78,58,394 (2019-20), 77,08,375 (2020-21), 1,22,34,625 (2021-22), 1,38,51,689 (2022-23) and 1,31,48,204 (2023-24). Each year is plotted at the year the financial year ends. Only this one vintage is used: EPFO revises its payroll figures every month, and the three years the table shares with a Lok Sabha reply of 5 February 2024 match it exactly. 2024-25 is not plotted, because the only official statement found for that year is 'over 1.29 crore net subscribers' (PIB, 4 October 2025), which is not an exact figure and belongs to a later vintage; the same table gives twelve monthly figures for 2024-25 but no financial-year total. EPFO's monthly payroll releases have not continued past the July 2025 data, published on 23 September 2025. A net addition is not a count of jobs: it nets out exits and includes members rejoining after a break, and covers only establishments under the EPF & Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952. · link