The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) in its latest released payroll data has said that net employment generation in the formal sector touched a 17-month high of 8.96 lakh in January, 2019.

The EPFO has been releasing payroll data from April 2018, covering the period starting September 2017.

The addition in January was 131 per cent higher as compared with 3.87 lakh EPFO subscribers added in the year-ago month.

The EPFO said the data is provisional as updation of employee records is a continuous process and gets d in subsequent months.

The EPFO manages social security funds of workers in the organised and semi organised sector in India and has more than 6 crore active members.