GENEVA (Reuters) – Global unemployment remained stable last year at an all-time low of 5%, where it is expected to remain in 2025, the International Labor Organization said in a report released on Thursday.
However, the Geneva-based body said the global economic slowdown from 3.3% to around 3.2% last year and a gradual slowdown in the medium term will limit job creation.
“The global economy continues to grow at a moderate rate, but is projected to gradually lose steam, preventing a stronger and more sustained labor market recovery,” the ILO’s flagship report on global employment and social trends said.
The current global unemployment rate of 5% is the lowest in the ILO data series since 1991, and is forecast to fall again to 4.9% in 2026, the ILO said.
However, some countries and groups are failing to benefit from the positive trend, with young people facing a significantly higher unemployment rate of 12.6%, the report said.
While some European countries have seen unemployment fall in recent years, countries such as South Africa have reported persistently high levels above 30% in 2024, it said.
ILO Director-General Gilbert Houngbo, a former prime minister of Togo, called for bold action to help address barriers to a thriving labor market.
“The world must embrace new approaches to social justice that generate decent work,” he said in the report’s foreword.
The 84-page report also includes recommendations to boost job creation by investing in education plus a proposal for new private funding from migrants’ remittances sent home to boost development in poorer countries.
