Work and employment are not synonyms
Work and employment may be used indistinctly in everyday language, but for the labour market they mean very different things. Employment is a very specific form of work. Other forms of work include volunteer work, unpaid trainee work and work for own use.
Country groupings
Country groupings by ILO region and WB income group Excel version of country groupings
Indicator description: Unemployment rate
Introduction The unemployment rate is probably the best-known labour market measure and certainly one of the most widely quoted by media in many countries. The unemployment rate is a useful measure of the underutilization of the labour supply. It reflects the inability of an economy to generate employment for thoseRead more
Indicator description: Time-related underemployment rate
Introduction The time-related underemployment rate is a measure of labour underutilization that provides information regarding the share of employed persons who are willing and available to increase their working time (for production within the SNA production boundary) and worked fewer hours than a specified time threshold during the reference period.Read more
Indicator description: Employment by status in employment
Introduction This indicator provides information on how people’s jobs are classified based on the associated type of economic risk and the type of authority of job incumbents over establishments and other workers. ILOSTAT contains statistics from national sources on employment by status in employment, also disaggregated by sex, available usingRead more
Indicator description: Labour productivity
Introduction Labour productivity is an important economic indicator that is closely linked to economic growth, competitiveness, and living standards. Labour productivity represents the total volume of output (measured in terms of Gross Domestic Product, GDP) produced per unit of labour (measured in terms of the number of employed persons) duringRead more
Indicator description: Employment by occupation
Introduction This indicator provides information on the distribution of employment across different occupations. Having detailed statistics on employment by occupation also disaggregated by sex allows for the calculation of the proportion of women in managerial positions, which was included as one of the indicators to measure progress towards the achievementRead more
Indicator description: Share of youth not in employment, education or training (youth NEET rate)
Introduction The share of youth not in education, employment or training (also known as “the NEET rate”) conveys the number of young persons not in education, employment or training as a percentage of the total youth population. It provides a measure of youth who are outside the educational system, notRead more
Indicator description: Labour force participation rate
Introduction The labour force participation rate is a measure of the proportion of a country’s working-age population that engages actively in the labour market, either by working or looking for work; it provides an indication of the size of the supply of labour available to engage in the production ofRead more