Employment and Social Trends 2026 Report:
The International Labour Organization (ILO) has released the Employment and Social Trends 2026 report, estimating the global unemployment rate at 4.9% in 2025.
Key Highlights of the Employment and Social Trends 2026 Report:
- Between 2015–2025, the decline in extreme working poverty was only 3.1 percentage points (to 7.9% or 284 million workers), far less than the previous decade’s 15-point drop.
- In low-income countries, 68% of workers lived in extreme or moderate poverty in 2025.
- Extreme working poverty refers to the situation in which employed persons live in households with a per capita income or consumption level below the international extreme poverty line (less than USD 3 a day).
- The global informality rate increased by 0.3 percentage points (2015–2025), with 2.1 billion workers projected to be informally employed by 2026.
- The pace of workers moving across economic sectors has halved globally over the last two decades. This slowing transition to formal, productive sectors is a major driver of weak job quality and productivity growth.
- The global unemployment rate remained at 4.9% in 2025 (forecast 186 million unemployed in 2026), with a jobs gap of 408 million. Employment growth is uneven, i.e., declining in high-income countries (2026), slow in upper-middle-income countries (0.5%), but faster in low-income countries (3.1%).
- Women represent only two-fifths of global employment, with a 24.2 percentage point lower labour force participation than men.
- The global youth unemployment rate rose to 12.4% in 2025, with 257 million young people as NEET (Not in Employment, Education, or Training).
- Labour productivity growth remains low, especially in low-income countries. The global labour income share (52.6% in 2025) is below its 2019 level, showing real wage growth lags productivity growth.
- AI adoption poses a heightened risk to educated youth in high-skilled entry-level jobs. Trade policy uncertainty threatens real wages and job creation, particularly in regions like South-Eastern Asia and Europe.
- While 465 million jobs depended on foreign demand in 2024, low-income countries are largely excluded from trade and investment flows, limiting their access to better-quality, trade-linked jobs.
