Spike in enrollments deceptive as high volatility mars EPFO payroll data

A certain set of establishments (not all), with at least 20 employees, are required to make contribution towards the provident fund (PF) of its workforce.

The payroll data by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) may have shown a 34 per cent monthly jump in net enrolments in August, but it might not be an indication of revival in the job market.

When the payroll data for April was first released in June, net enrolments stood at 133,080. But it was revised sharply when fresh data was released on Tuesday to show that there was, in fact, a net reduction in payroll by 104,608 in April.

To understand this, we need to delve into how the EPFO collects the payroll data released on the 20th of every