Indicator 8.5.2 Unemployment rate, by sex, age and persons with disabilities

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International Labour Organization (ILO)

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Definition:

The unemployment rate conveys the percentage of persons in the labour force who are unemployed.

Concepts:

Unemployed persons are defined as all those of working age (usually aged 15 and above) who were not in employment, carried out activities to seek employment during a specified recent period and were currently available to take up employment given a job opportunity, where: (a) “not in employment” is assessed with respect to the short reference period for the measurement of employment; (b) to “seek employment” refers to any activity when carried out, during a specified recent period comprising the last four weeks or one month, for the purpose of finding a job or setting up a business or agricultural undertaking; (c) the point when the enterprise starts to exist should be used to distinguish between search activities aimed at setting up a business and the work activity itself, as evidenced by the enterprise’s registration to operate or by when financial resources become available, the necessary infrastructure or materials are in place or the first client or order is received, depending on the context; (d) “currently available” serves as a test of readiness to start a job in the present, assessed with respect to a short reference period comprising that used to measure employment (depending on national circumstances, the reference period may be extended to include a short subsequent period not exceeding two weeks in total, so as to ensure adequate coverage of unemployment situations among different population groups).

Persons in employment are defined as all those of working age (usually aged 15 and above) who, during a short reference period such as one week or one day, were engaged in any activity to produce goods or provide services for pay or profit.

The labour force corresponds to the sum of persons in employment and in unemployment.

For more information on the definitions of employment and unemployment refer to the Resolution concerning statistics of work, employment and labour underutilization Adopted by the 19^th International Conference of Labour Statisticians.

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Percent (%)

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Disability status is based on the WHO International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), according to which disability covers impairments (problems in body function or structure such as a significant deviation or loss), activity limitations (difficulties in executing activities) and participation restrictions (problems in involvement in life situations). For measurement purposes, the ICF defines a person with disability as a person who is limited in the kind or amount of activities that he or she can do because of ongoing difficulties due to a long-term physical condition, mental condition or health problem.

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The preferred official national data source for this indicator is a household-based labour force survey.

In the absence of a labour force survey, a population census and/or other type of household surveys with an appropriate employment module may also be used to obtain the required data. It is important to note that unemployment data derived from employment office records or unemployment registers would not refer to unemployment (as defined for the purposes of this indicator, using the three-criteria of being without a job, seeking employment and available for employment) but to registered unemployment, and thus, it would not be comparable with indicator 8.5.2.

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The ILO Department of Statistics processes national household survey microdata sets in line with internationally-agreed indicator concepts and definitions set forth by the International Conference of Labour Statisticians. For data that could not be obtained through this processing or directly from government websites, the ILO sends out an annual ILOSTAT questionnaire to all relevant agencies within each country (national statistical office, labour ministry, etc.) requesting the latest annual data and any revisions on numerous labour market topics and indicators, including many SDG indicators.

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Continuous

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Continuous

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Mainly national statistical offices, and in some cases labour ministries or other related agencies, at the country-level. In some cases, regional or international statistical offices can also act as data providers.

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International Labour Organization (ILO)

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The ILO is the UN focal point for labour statistics. It sets international standards for labour statistics through the International Conference of Labour Statisticians. It also compiles and produces labour statistics with the goal of disseminating internationally-comparable datasets, and provides technical assistance and training to ILO member States to support their efforts to produce high quality labour market data.

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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 those persons who want to work but are not doing so, even though they are available for employment and actively seeking work. It is thus seen as an indicator of the efficiency and effectiveness of an economy to absorb its labour force and of the performance of the labour market. Short-term time series of the unemployment rate can be used to signal changes in the business cycle; upward movements in the indicator often coincide with recessionary periods or in some cases with the beginning of an expansionary period as persons previously not in the labour market begin to test conditions through an active job search.

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Even though in most developed countries the unemployment rate is useful as an indicator of labour market performance, and specifically, as a key measure of labour underutilization, in many developing countries, the significance and meaning of the unemployment rate could be questioned. In the absence of unemployment insurance systems or social safety nets, persons of working age must avoid unemployment, resorting to engaging in some form of economic activity, however insignificant or inadequate. Thus, in this context, other measures should supplement the unemployment rate to comprehensively assess labour underutilization.

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The computation is identical for both series:

$\mathrm{U}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{y}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{\ }\mathrm{r}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{e}=\mathrm{\ }\frac{\mathrm{T}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{\ }\mathrm{u}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{y}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{t}}{\mathrm{T}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{\ }\mathrm{l}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{b}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{u}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{\ }\mathrm{f}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{c}\mathrm{e}}\mathrm{\ }\times 100$

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Through the ILO Harmonized Microdata initiative, the ILO strives to produce internationally comparable labour statistics based on the indicator concepts and definitions adopted by the International Conference of Labour Statisticians.

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• At country level

Multivariate regression techniques are used to impute missing values at the country level. However, the imputed missing country values are only used to calculate the global and regional estimates; they are not used for international reporting on the SDG indicators by the ILO.

For further information on the estimates, please refer to the ILO modelled estimates methodological overview, available at https://www.ilo.org/ilostat-files/Documents/TEM.pdf.

• At regional and global levels

Regional and global figures are aggregates of the country-level figures including the imputed values.

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To address the problem of missing data, the ILO designed several econometric models which are used to produce estimates of labour market indicators in the countries and years for which real data are not available. The unemployment estimates derived from the ILO modelled estimates are used to produce global and regional estimates on unemployment rates. These models use multivariate regression techniques to impute missing values at the country level, which are then aggregated to produce regional and global estimates. For further information on the estimates, please refer to the ILO modelled estimates methodological overview, available at https://www.ilo.org/ilostat-files/Documents/TEM.pdf.

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To calculate this indicator (according to the ILO definitions of unemployment and unemployment rate), data is needed on both the labour force and the unemployed, by sex and age (and eventually disability status). This data is collected at the national level mainly through labour force surveys (or other types of household surveys with an employment module). For the methodology of each national household survey, one must refer to the most comprehensive survey report or to the methodological publications of the national statistical office in question.

For further information, see section 7 with references and documentation.

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The processes of compilation, production, and publication of data, including its quality control, are carried out following the methodological framework and standards established by the ILO Department of Statistics, in compliance with the information technology and management standards of the ILO.

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Data consistency and quality checks are regularly conducted for validation of the data before dissemination in the ILOSTAT database.

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The final assessment of the quality of information is carried out by the Data Production and Analysis Unit of the ILO Department of Department. In cases of doubt about the quality of specific data, these values are reviewed with the participation of the national agencies responsible for producing the data if appropriate. If the issues cannot be clarified, the respective information is not published.

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Data availability:

Data disaggregated by sex and age for this indicator is available for 216 countries and territories. The indicator is widely available based on real observations provided by countries and derived from national labour force surveys, other types of household surveys or population census.

However, the disaggregation by disability is not widely available and this submission only includes 101 countries and territories. It is increasingly reported but coverage is still very low.

Time series:
Data for disaggregation by sex and age for this indicator is available as of 2000 until 2021 for countries in the SDG Indicators Global Database, but time series going back further are available in ILOSTAT. 2020 regional aggregates are available for total population. Global and regional aggregates disaggregated by sex and age are available through 2020 and aggregates disaggregated by sex only are available for 2021.

Data for disaggregation by disability status is available for the period from 2003 to 2021 at the country level.

Disaggregation:

This indicator should, ideally, be disaggregated by sex, age group and disability status.

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Sources of discrepancies:

Differences in the questionnaires used in the household surveys as the basic measurement tool may entail differences in specific definitions of employment and unemployment, differences in the treatment of specific groups or differences in the operational criteria used to determine the individual’s labour force status.

The unemployment rate is dependent on the geographical coverage of the survey since urban and rural areas tend to have significant differences in the incidence of unemployment. It is important to note that unemployment indicators do not convey any information on the characteristics of the unemployed (their education level, ethnic origin, socio-economic background, work experience, duration of unemployment, etc.), which is crucial to cast light on labour market failures.

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• Decent Work and the Sustainable Development Goals: A Guidebook on SDG Labour Market Indicators, available at https://www.ilo.org/global/statistics-and-databases/publications/WCMS_647109/lang--en/index.htm
• ILOSTAT (https://ilostat.ilo.org/)
• ILOSTAT Indicator descriptions (https://ilostat.ilo.org/resources/concepts-and-definitions/description-unemployment-rate/)
• ILOSTAT’s topic page on Unemployment and Labour Underutilization (https://ilostat.ilo.org/topics/unemployment-and-labour-underutilization/).
• Decent Work Indicators Manual: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---

stat/documents/publication/wcms_223121.pdf

• Resolution concerning statistics of work, employment and labour underutilization, adopted by the 19^th ICLS in 2013: https://www.ilo.org/global/statistics-and-databases/standards-and-guidelines/resolutions-adopted-by-international-conferences-of-labour-statisticians/WCMS_230304/lang--en/index.htm
• Trends Econometric Models: A Review of Methodology: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_emp/---emp_elm/---trends/documents/publication/wcms_120382.pdf
• ILO Manual – Decent Work Indicators, Concepts and Definitions – Chapter 1, Employment opportunities http://www.ilo.org/integration/resources/pubs/WCMS_229374/lang--en/index.htm (second version, pages 34 and 49)