The International Labour Organization (ILO)’s Employment and Social Trends 2026 report, released in Geneva on Wednesday (January 14, 2026), has warned that the global unemployment rate is projected to remain at the historically low level of 4.9% – equivalent to 186 million people – in this year. The report has found that around 284 million workers still live in extreme poverty with an earning of less than three dollars a day and added that more than two billion workers around the world remain in informal employment.
The report noted that between 2015 and 2025, the share of workers living in extreme poverty declined by only 3.1 percentage points, to 7.9%, compared with a decline of 15 percentage points in the previous decade. “This leaves 284 million workers living in extreme poverty – that is, less than $3.00 a day,” it found and that millions of workers around the world still lack access to quality jobs.
ILO Director-General Gilbert F. Houngbo said: “Worryingly, the number of working poor and informal workers is rising in low-income countries, highlighting a lack of progress where it is needed most. Gender gaps also remain widespread throughout the world of work, with limited advances in only a few areas, such as the reduction in contributing family work.”
The report, talking about trade uncertainties, said the factor is likely to remain a persistent feature of the global economic landscape, at least in the short term. “These dynamics are unfolding alongside broader processes of structural transformation and digitalisation, which are reshaping trade, supply chains and production systems,” the report noted.
The global rate of informality increased by 0.3 percentage points between 2015 and 2025, after having declined in the previous decade. “By 2026, 2.1 billion workers globally are projected to be informally employed. Informality is typically associated with lower job quality due to limited access to social protection, rights at work, workplace safety and job security,” it said adding that this increase largely reflects the growing share of employment in countries with higher rates of informality, chiefly in Africa and Southern Asia, making efforts to reduce informality in these economies critical.
As the global unemployment rate was estimated at 4.9% in 2025, unchanged from 2024, and is projected to remain at a similar level until 2027, the report said: “Global unemployment is forecast to reach 186 million in 2026, while the broader measure of labour underutilisation – the jobs gap – is projected at 408 million. Regional patterns vary, with Latin America and the Caribbean poised to further reduce its overall unemployment rate in the medium term, whereas unemployment in Northern America is expected to worsen,” the report added.
On Women unemployment
In 2025, women represented only two fifths of global employment, indicating significant barriers to accessing employment. “Women were 24.2 percentage points less likely than men to be in the labour force, while young women were 14.4 percentage points more likely than young men not to be in employment, education or training (NEET). The global unemployment rate for women is only slightly above that of men, indicating that they primarily face barriers to accessing the labour market rather than to finding a job,” the report noted.
Problems for young people
Labour market conditions for young people remain problematic, especially in low-income countries, the report added. “In 2025, the global youth unemployment rate crept up to 12.4%, from 12.3% in 2024, while the share of youth with NEET status rose slightly to 20.0%, from 19.9%. This is concerning, since 257 million young individuals with NEET status missed out on the opportunity to gain valuable education, skills and experience to improve their future labour market prospects,” the report found.
“Recent disruptions caused by trade uncertainty, combined with ongoing long-term transformations in global trade, could significantly affect labour market outcomes. ILO modelling suggests that a moderate increase in trade policy uncertainty may reduce returns to labour and, as a consequence, real wages for both skilled and unskilled workers across all sectors. The estimated income losses are greatest in regions deeply integrated into global supply chains – up to 0.45 per cent in South-Eastern Asia, and up to 0.3 per cent in Europe and Southern Asia,” it said.
