Formal employment in India is back to the pre-pandemic level, reports Business Today, citing data from the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPF). In January 2021, 1.33 million new jobs across age groups were registered with the EPF, which is the highest net job creation number since September 2017, when the EPF started releasing the monthly data. January's payroll numbers mark a month-on-month increase of 24% over December 2020. On a year-on-year (over January 2020) basis this is a 27.8% improvement. At the same time, unemployment has dropped to 6.53%. During the start of the pandemic in March and April 2020, the unemployment rate stood at 23.5%.