ILO: Women Face Greater Employment Gaps Than Men

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that the global jobs gap affected 434.8 million people in 2023.

This figure is down 5.6 million from 2022, when it stood at 440.4 million. The ILO notes that the jobs gap has improved in recent years, particularly after the peak of the pandemic in 2020.

The jobs gap in 2020 reached 499.5 million people, while in 2021 it was 476.4 million.

By gender, women experience a larger jobs gap than men. The ILO predicts that 220.7 million women experienced a jobs gap in 2023, down from 223 million in 2022.

Meanwhile, the jobs gap for men was 214.1 million in 2023, down from 217.5 million in 2022.

"Across all income groups of countries, the jobs gap faced by women is higher than that faced by men," the ILO wrote in its report.

However, the ILO continues, the gender gap is most pronounced in low- and lower-middle-income countries, where the difference between women and men can be almost 7 percentage points.

In upper-middle- and high-income countries, the jobs gap between women and men was 3.0 and 2.3 percentage points respectively in 2023.

The ILO defines the "jobs gap" as every person who wants a job. The jobs gap is a new indicator developed by the organization.

"This figure provides a bleaker picture of the situation of women in the world of work compared to the commonly used unemployment figures," the ILO writes.