By Dr. Gyan Pathak
Global jobs gap and job quality deficits remain very large. Labour markets remain stable, but this stability is fragile. Unemployment remains stable, but progress towards decent work has stalled. Inequality persists, especially for women and young people. Global trade disruptions are adding uncertainty to labour markets.
These are the key concerns that the new report titled Employment and Social Trends 2026 released today January 14, 2026 by International Labour Organization (ILO) has flagged. The report has also warned that artificial intelligence and trade policy uncertainty risk further undermining the job market.
Improvement in the quality of employment has slowed over the past two decades, the report said. Between 2015 and 2025, the share of workers living in extreme poverty declined by only 3.1 percentage points, to 7.9 per cent, 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 US$3.00 a day. Moreover, both extreme and moderate working poverty rates increased in low-income countries between 2015 and 2025, with almost 68 per cent of workers living in extreme or moderate poverty in 2025.
Though the report finds a resilient growth, and projected the global unemployment rate to stay at 4.9 per cent in 2026, that is equivalent to about 186 million workers around the world who still lack access to quality jobs, it is clearly a matter of concern. When population is ever increasing, and millions of people enter job market every year, any stagnation in job market is not good. That is why the ILO Director-General Gilbert F Houngbo has warned, “Resilient growth and stable unemployment figures should not distract us from the deeper reality: hundreds of millions of workers remain trapped in poverty, informality, and exclusion.”
The report finds that quality jobs are declining. Nearly 300 million workers continue to live in extreme poverty, earning less than US$3 a day, while informality is rising, with 2.1 billion workers expected to hold informal jobs by 2026, with limited access to social protection, rights at work, and job security. In addition, the incidence of own-account work, which in low- and middle-income countries is often low paid and undertaken out of necessity, rose again between 2015 and 2025.The acute lack of progress in low-income countries is pushing workers with the poorest employment conditions even further behind.
Unemployment shows no signs of change, albeit looking risks exist. Projected GDP growth for 2025 to 2027 has barely changed compared to the outlook in 2024. The outlook continues to include significant risks relating to mounting sovereign debt, trade policy uncertainty and AI-driven disruptions.
Young people continue to struggle. Youth unemployment climbed to 12.4 per cent in 2025, with around 260 million young people not in education, employment or training (NEET). In low-income countries, NEET rates are a daunting 27.9 per cent.
Is this scenario, the report has warned that artificial intelligence and automation could exacerbate challenges, particularly for educated youth in high-income countries seeking their first job in high skill occupations.“While the full impact of AI on youth employment remains uncertain, its potential magnitude warrants close monitoring,” the report noted.
Women still face entrenched barriers, largely driven by social norms and stereotypes. They account for just two fifths of global employment, and are 24 per cent less likely than men to participate in the labour force. Gains in female labour force participation have stalled, slowing progress toward gender equality at work.
The global labour force participation rate is projected to decline by around 0.2 percentage points each year, reaching60.5 per cent in 2027. This structural downward trend, driven in part by the growing number of retirees as populations age, has accelerated once again due to the halt in the moderating effect of rising participation rates for women in lower-middle- and high-income countries between2015 and 2025.
As for employment, the report has projected an employment growth in 2026 at only 0.5 per cent in upper middle income countries, 1.8 per cent in lower middle income economies, and 3.1 per cent in low income ones. Global employment growth, projected at1.0 per cent in 2026, is slightly below the average of the preceding decade. Without sufficient productive job opportunities, poorer countries risk squandering their demographic dividend, the report has warned.
Weak labour productivity growth in low income countries is also deepening geographic inequalities, hindering progress toward decent work, and slowing the convergence of living standards with advanced economies. Actually, productivity and labour income growth are insufficient to advance decent work.
The report also mentions global trade disruptions that are adding great uncertainties to the economies of the world in general and labour markets in particular. Uncertainty about trade rules and supply chain bottlenecks are cutting into workers’ wages, the report stated, especially in Southeast Asia, Southern Asia, and Europe. Nevertheless, trade remains a major source of jobs, supporting 465 million workers worldwide, more than half of them in Asia and the Pacific.
Digitally delivered services now account for 14.5 per cent of global exports, and nearly half of all trade-related jobs are in market services. Although trade among developing economies has expanded, many African and Southern American countries still depend heavily on markets outside the region for most trade related jobs.
“Unless governments, employers, and workers act together to harness technology responsibly and expand quality job opportunities for women and youth – through coherent and coordinated institutional responses – decent work deficits will persist and social cohesion will be at risk,” ILO DG Houngbo said. (IPA Service)
Ajit Doval’s Talk Of Revenge Is Fraught With Dangerous Consequences 