World Employment and Social Outlook: May 2025 Update (ILO)

Summary

• Global GDP growth was revised down to 2.8% from 3.2% due to geopolitical tensions, trade disruptions and heightened uncertainty.p.1
• Global employment growth is expected to fall from 1.7% to 1.5% in 2025, an increase of 53 million jobs instead of the previous 60 million.p.1
• Around 84 million workers across 71 countries have employment linked to U.S. consumer demand and face elevated disruption risks from higher tariffs.p.1
• The labour income share fell from 53.0% in 2014 to 52.4% in 2024.p.1
• Had the labour income share stayed at its 2014 level, global labour income would have been $1 trillion higher in 2024, about $290 more per worker.p.7
• More than 2 billion people were in informal employment in 2024, representing 57.8% of all employed workers.p.6
• The global jobs gap is estimated to reach 407 million people in 2025.p.5

Key insights

1. Global inflation is projected at 4.4% in 2025 compared with 5.8% in 2024.p.2
2. The United States introduced new minimum duties of 10% on all imports in April 2025.p.3
3. Slower growth is expected to reduce global employment growth by approximately 7 million workers in 2025.p.4
4. Europe and Central Asia has the slowest projected employment growth at 0.6%, followed by the Americas at 1.2%.p.5
5. Asia and the Pacific recorded productivity growth of 39.8% over the last decade, the highest of any region.p.6
6. The labour income share declined by 1.7 percentage points in Europe and Central Asia and 1.3 in the Americas between 2014 and 2024.p.8
7. The share of workers with an advanced educational qualification rose from 25.7% to 29.8% over the past decade.p.10