Figure 2 Annual growth in working-age populations (by age group) and total labour force, 2000 - 2018

Concepts and definitions The labour force represents the current

supply of labour for the production of goods

and services for pay or profit. The labour

force is the sum of the employed and the

unemployed.

Employed : all persons of working age doing

work for pay or profit.

Unemployed : all persons of working age not

in employment, but available for and seeking

employment.

The labour force participation rate presents

the labour force expressed as a percentage of

the working-age population.

Figure 1 Composition of the world’s working-age population by

labour market status, 2018

STATS SHEET n°1 : Labour Force Participation ILOSTAT

Trends in the working-age population and labour force participation

Though the labour force is growing in size, the labour force participation rate is falling because the working-age

population is growing faster than the labour force. This global trend is mainly driven by the patterns observed in

Asia and the Pacific.

A growing working-age population coupled with a falling labour force participation rate implies that the number and

prevalence of people outside the labour force is increasing.

Another notable trend is the slow growth (or decline) in the number of young people (ages 15 to 24) entering the

labour force each year. Since 2000, the youth labour force has consistently grown less than the total labour force,

in all regions. This trend can be attributed to various factors, including declining youth populations and young

people remaining in school for longer.

Sex and age of the labour force

Men are more numerous than women in the labour force in every age

group (even though they are not more numerous in the total population

in each age group). This is especially the case in older age groups: in

2018, for every 100 women aged 65 or above in the labour force, there

were 179 men. This ratio has decreased in older age segments since

2000. However, in younger age groups (all age groups under 44 years old)

this ratio has increased.

Figure 3

Labour force by sex and age with sex ratios, 2000 and 2018 Figure 4

Regional proportions of the global labour force, 2018

Geography of the labour force

Countries in Asia and the Pacific made up 57.5 per cent of the world’s

labour force in 2018. About 14 per cent of the world’s labour force lived in

the Americas, and an additional 14 per cent in Africa.

2.1 %11.8 %

9 % 5.3 %

1.6 %

26.8 %

10 %20.7 %4.1 %

6.3 %

Northern

Af ricaSub-Saharan Africa

Latin America and the Caribbean Northern America

Arab

States

Eastern Asia

South-Eastern Asia

and the PacificSouthern Asia

Central and

Western Asia

Eastern Europe

Northern, Southern

and Western Europe

Africa

Americas

Arab

States

Asia and the Pacific

Europe and Central Asia

(of the world’s working-age population)

outside the labour

force

38.6%

Ratio of

female to male

in the labour force

100 : 156

100 156

Age

2000: 35yrs 6m

2018: 38yrs 10m

of the

median labour force

participant has increased