The retirement fund body, Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation’s (EPFO) payroll data suggests that 4.4 million jobs were created during September 2017 to May 2018. However, the retirement body lowered earlier estimate of new members enrolment by 9.57%, from 4,126,138 to 3,731,251 for September 2017-April this year.

According to the payroll data released by the EPFO last month for September to April, as many as 4,126,138 new members were enrolled for its social security schemes to provide benefits, including provident fund, insurance, and pension.

According to the data, the new members’ enrolment in May is the highest so far in the last eight month at 7.4 million. During May, the maximum number of enrolment of 2.5 million were registered in the age bracket of 18 to 21 years followed by 1.9 million in 22 to 25 years age group. The report says that the payroll data is provisional as the updating of employees records is a continuous process. It is also stated that the estimates might include temporary employees.

Earlier this year, the EPFO had started the practice of updating payroll data on its official portal. The body had also lowered its payroll data estimates earlier.