EPFO revises down payroll numbers by 12% for September-May period

 
The net enrolment numbers released by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has been revised down by 12.4 per cent for the September-May period, from an earlier estimate of 4.5 million to 3.9 million.
The payroll count in June rose by 24 per cent to 793,308. The net enrolment numbers for June were the highest since September 2017. In May, the payroll numbers had grown by 10 per cent to 638,653.
The payroll count is essentially the difference between the number of workers who joined and exited from the EPFO’s fold. All employees who work in establishment hiring at least 20 workers contribute towards provident fund and pension, managed by the EPFO. The Union government has been citing this data since the past few months as an indication for job growth in the economy.
During a debate on the no-confidence motion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had claimed that over 10 million jobs were created in the country in past one year, quoting the payroll data released by EPFO, along with other proxy datasets.
The government started releasing the payroll data since April this year for the period beginning September 2017. The payroll has been revised downwards for each of the nine months between September 2017 and May this year. The downward revision is in the range of 5-27 per cent in these months.
 
“The data is provisional as updates of employees records is a continuous process and it gets updated in subsequent months,” said the EPFO. The estimates released by the EPFO may include temporary employees, “whose contributions may not be continuous for the entire year.”
Source: Business Standard