India’s Youth Lead Formal Job Boom as Social Security Enrolments Hit Multi-Year High

India’s formal job market has roared back to life, with net EPFO subscribers hitting a five-month high of 21.2 lakh in September 2025 and ESIC adding 18.7 lakh new insured workers in August—the strongest monthly numbers since the post-pandemic rebound. Powered overwhelmingly by Gen Z and millennials, the 18–28 age bracket now drives 65–70% of all fresh payroll additions, signalling a structural youth bulge finally translating into formal, social-security-linked employment across manufacturing, IT, and services.

ESIC’s consolidated data from FY18 to FY25 reveals a remarkable formalisation story: total insured persons rose from 2.9 crore to just under 3 crore, with the 22–35 cohort jumping from 1.9 crore to 2.1 crore—70% of the entire base. Even more telling is the exit-re-entry pattern: every month 20–30 lakh workers leave the scheme (job switches or salary crossing the ₹21,000 ceiling), yet gross additions of 16–20 lakh still deliver net growth, proving churn is now accompanied by rapid re-onboarding into formal roles.

Gender gaps persist but are narrowing slowly. Men still account for ~80% of enrolments, yet women’s share has inched up from 18% in 2018 to 20.5% in 2025, with southern states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka showing the fastest female inclusion rates. The 18–21 age group alone added 4.8 lakh women subscribers between April and July 2025, hinting that campus-to-corporate pipelines are finally becoming more inclusive.

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Seven states—the Mumbai-Pune belt in Maharashtra, Bengaluru in Karnataka, Chennai in Tamil Nadu, Gurugram-Noida in Haryana-Delhi, Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Hyderabad in Telangana, and Pune—together contributed 68% of all new EPF accounts in 2025. This geographic concentration underscores how India’s formal job engine remains clustered around urban tech-manufacturing corridors, even as tier-2 cities like Coimbatore, Indore and Lucknow begin to chip in.

With EPFO’s net additions for April–September 2025 already touching 1.05 crore—on track to surpass last year’s 1.3 crore—and ESIC crossing the 3-crore mark for the first time, policymakers now face a new challenge: expanding social security to the remaining 90% of India’s workforce still outside the formal net, even as the youth wave keeps the formal sector humming at levels not seen since pre-COVID peaks.

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