..Says Women Leading In High-Skilled Jobs
The International Labour Organization (ILO) has revised its global employment forecast for 2025, projecting the creation of 53 million jobs instead of the previously estimated 60 million, translating into a reduction in global employment growth from 1.7 per cent to 1.5 per cent this year.
The global labour organization stated on Wednesday that the drop in global employment rate, which is the equivalent of around seven million fewer additional jobs, reflected a downgraded global economic outlook, as GDP growth is expected at 2.8 per cent, down from a previous projection of 3.2 per cent this year.
The ILO’s latest employment estimates, issued in its new ‘World Employment and Social Outlook (WESO) Update’ report, are based on economic growth projections from the recently released International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) April 2025 World Economic Outlook (WEF) report.
- Advertisement -
In addition, the ILO estimates that close to 84 million jobs across 71 countries are directly or indirectly tied to U.S. consumer demand, noting that the affected jobs – and the incomes they support – are now increasingly at risk of disruption due to elevated trade tensions.
According to the labour organization, the Asia-Pacific region is where most of these jobs – 56 million – are concentrated while Canada and Mexico, however, have the highest share of jobs – 17.1 per cent – that are exposed.
Commenting on the report’s findings, ILO Director-General, Gilbert Houngbo, said: “We know that the global economy is growing at a slower pace than we had anticipated it would. Our report now tells us that if geopolitical tensions and trade disruptions continue, and if we do not address fundamental questions that are reshaping the world of work, then they will most certainly have negative ripple effects on labour markets worldwide.”
The report also highlights troubling trends in income distribution. For instance, its findings showed that the labour income share, which is the proportion of GDP going to workers, fell globally from 53.0 per cent in 2014 to 52.4 per cent in 2024, with Africa and the Americas experiencing the largest declines.
The ILO noted that had this share remained unchanged, labour income globally would have been US$1 trillion higher in 2024, or US$290 more per worker in constant purchasing power terms, pointing out that this erosion in the share of global income going to workers puts upward pressure on inequality and highlights a disconnect between economic growth and worker compensation.
The report points to a shift in employment towards high-skilled jobs. Women are leading this trend.
It reported that between 2013 and 2023, the share of women employed in high-skilled occupations rose from 21.2 to 23.2 per cent – while the proportion of men in high-skilled occupations was around 18 per cent in 2023.
Despite this finding, the ILO noted that yet occupational segregation persisted in the global labour market, with women under-represented in sectors such as construction and over-represented in clerical and care-giving roles.
It further clarified that while educational attainment continues to rise worldwide, the labour market remained characterized by significant educational mismatches, noting that as of 2022, only 47.7 per cent of workers held qualifications that appropriately matched their job requirements, while the share of under-educated workers declined from 37.9 to 33.4 per cent over the past decade, but the share of over-educated workers increased from 15.5 to 18.9 per cent.
The report also addresses the effects of new technologies on the world of work and found that nearly one in four workers may find their jobs transformed by generative AI while a larger share of jobs in medium-skilled occupations have some degree of exposure, but a greater percentage of jobs in high-skilled occupations have high exposure, whereby existing tasks could potentially be automated by AI.
The ILO Director-General explained: “The findings of this report on the employment landscape are sobering, but they can also act as a roadmap for the creation of decent jobs. We can make a difference, and we can do so by strengthening social protection, investing in skills development, promoting social dialogue, and building inclusive labour markets to ensure that technological change benefits all. And we must do so with urgency, ambition, and solidarity.”
