First time since payroll data was first released in April, the government has revealed the number of people leaving the formal workforce, based on data from the retirement fund manager Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO).

While the government did not mention the reason behind so many people leaving EPFO, the data showed that at least 6.04 Mn employees stopped subscribing to it between September 2017 and June 2018. 

On the other hand, about 10.7 Mn employees joined EPFO in the same time period. 

Out of the 6 Mn employees who left their jobs, 4.6 Mn of them were under 35 years of age. 

In recent times the government has used EPFO data as a key parameter to count formal job creation or loss. However, the results and the interpretations always seem to be quite ambiguous. 

Interestingly, the government also revised the payroll data once again for all the nine months released earlier. Previously, in July it had said that 4.47 Mn people joined the formal workforce in the nine months ending May 2018, but now on Friday it again revised the number to 9.69 Mn, more than double the previous estimate.