India is poised to witness record-breaking formal job creation in the fiscal year 2024-25, hinting strong hiring activity supported by robust economic growth. According to provisional data released by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), the net addition of formal jobs in the first 11 months of the fiscal year 2024-25 has already reached 13.22 million. This figure has surpassed the total of 13.14 million jobs added during the previous 2023-24 fiscal year.
The surge in formal employment reflects sustained economic recovery and growing business confidence across sectors, according to an ET report.
At the current pace—averaging 1.2 million net job additions per month—the total figure for FY2024-25 is expected to exceed 14.5 million. This would mark the highest annual net addition of formal jobs in India’s history, surpassing all previous records including the record of 13.8 million formal jobs created in 2022-23, the report said.
However, new establishments registered with EPFO have gone down in FY 2024-25 to lower than the establishments in the FYs 2018-19 and 2019-20.
Speaking on the increased formulation of jobs, Sougata Roy Choudhury, executive director at Confederation of Indian Industry said, “an increasing number of workers are now demanding wages in their bank accounts instead of the earlier trend of wages in cash, this has led to increased formalisation of jobs reflected in the surge in EPFO payroll data.”
Reflecting on the lowering number of establishments, a senior government official told the financial daily, “ The dip in number of new establishments coming into the EPFO fold in 2024-25 can be attributed to lack of any fiscal incentive for employers to come into the EPFO fold”, further adding that the situation is likely to change as the government is set to introduce schemes like Employment-linked incentive to boost employment.
The official also suggested that another possible reason behind lower employers numbers could be that some establishments operated with 19 or fewer employees for an extended period but only registered with the EPFO after reaching the mandatory threshold of 20 employees.
“This would mean while only one new establishment got added, the new formal job addition was 20 or more and hence the trend of lower number establishments remitting their first electronic challan in the year compared to previous years,” he explained.
The EPFO data serves as a key indicator of employment trends in the organized sector, tracking new enrolments, exits, and re-entries under the Employees’ Provident Fund scheme.