Retirement fund body EPFO's gross new subscribers addition declined by over 4 per cent to 1.09 crore in 2023-24 compared to a year ago, as per a report by Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI).

According to the report 'Payroll Reporting in India: An Employment Perspective –January to April, 2024', the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) recorded 1,09,93,119 gross addition of new members in 2023-24 compared to 1,14,98,453 in 2022-23.

The gross addition of new members was affected due to the pandemic and declined from 1,10,40,683 in 2019-20 to 85,48,898 in 2020-21. It bounced back to 1,08,65,063 in 2021-22.

The Centre as well as states had imposed lockdown restriction in 2020 and 2021 to curb the spread of deadly coronavirus in the country, which had hit economic activities as well as employment.

The data shows that in the last five fiscal years till 2023-24, the gross new members addition by EFPO had not recovered to pre-covid level of 2018-19.

The gross addition of new members was 1,39,44,349 in 2018-19.

Since April 2018, the ministry has been bringing out the employment related statistics in the formal sector covering the period September 2017 onwards, using information on the number of subscribers who have subscribed under three major schemes, namely Employees' Provident Fund (EPF), Employees' State Insurance (ESI) and National Pension Scheme (NPS).

The numbers of subscribers are from various sources and there are elements of overlap. Therefore, the estimates from various sources are not additive, it stated.

The report also showed that the gross addition of members of Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) also dipped to 1,67,60,672 in 2023-24 from 1,67,73,023 in 2022-23.

However, according to the report, the new addition of subscribers increased under NPS to 9,37,020 in 2023-24 from 8,24,735 in 2022-23.