The global unemployment rate remained at 5% in 2024, the same level as in 2023. The data appears in the report World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2025launched this Thursday (17) by the International Labor Organization (ILO).
Among the factors that contribute to the difficulty in recovering the job market are geopolitical tensions and the increase in the costs of climate change.
According to the institution, the world economy is expanding at a moderate pace, but the forecast is for it to lose dynamism, preventing a strong and lasting recovery in the job market.
“Economic growth was 3.2% in 2024, below the 3.3% and 3.6% in 2023 and 2022, respectively. A similar expansion is expected in 2025 and then a gradual slowdown in the medium term”, he points out .
Informal work
The report points out that informal work and the number of poor workers have returned to pre-pandemic levels.
Low-income countries, according to the entity, faced more challenges in generating jobs. In these locations, the share of young men neither-neither, that is, those who neither study nor work, increased by almost four percentage points above the average reached in the years before the pandemic.
Last year, among the total number of people without formal employment, without attending school or taking training, young men reached 85.8 million (13.1%) and young women, 173.3 million (28.2% ). From 2023 to 2024, there was an increase of 1 million and 1.8 million, respectively.
“Young people, especially, continue to face much higher unemployment rates – around 12.6% – with little sign of improvement,” the report says.
Global jobs deficit
In total, the global jobs deficit – the estimated number of people who want to work but cannot find a job – reached 402 million last year. This number is made up of 186 million unemployed people, 137 million who are mainly discouraged people and 79 million who would like to work, but have obligations, carrying out caring duties for other people, which prevent them from having access to employment.
