The data in this domain provides information about the volume and distribution of jobs by economic sector within the labour market. The charts below cover two types of indicators:

1. the absolute number of jobs by economic sector;
2. the relative distribution of jobs by economic sector as well as the distribution of workers within economic sectors by sex.

For further information about definitions and sources and methodology please see below at the end of the page.

Please make use of the interactive filtering options to highlight data by country, years, age groups, and gender.

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Definitions

This indicator provides information on employment across different economic activities. Information by sector of economic activity is particularly useful in identifying broad shifts in employment and stages of development. For example, statistics on employment by economic activity allows for the calculation of the share of manufacturing in total employment.

The classification by economic activity refers to the main activity of the establishment in which a person worked during the reference period. The branch of economic activity of a person does not depend on the specific duties or functions of the person’s job, but rather on the characteristics of the economic unit in which the person works.

Data presented by branch of economic activity is based on the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC). The ISIC is the international reference classification of productive activities. Its main purpose is to provide a set of activity categories that can be utilized for the collection and reporting of statistics according to such activities.

For more information, refer to the ILO concepts and definitions page as well as the dedicated page at: https://ilostat.ilo.org/resources/concepts-and-definitions/description-employment-by-economic-activity/

Sources and methodology

The data for the charts below is sourced from these data tables:

(1) “Employment by sex and economic activity -- ILO modelled estimates, Nov. 2020 (thousands) | Annual”, table code “EMP_2EMP_SEX_ECO_NB_A”.

The data can be accessed here: https://ilostat.ilo.org/data/.

Warning about data quality: some of the data may be based on imputed observations. Imputed observations are not based on national data, are subject to high uncertainty and should not be used for country comparisons or rankings. For more information about the estimation and, where relevant, projection methodology, please refer to the ILOSTAT page on modelled estimates and projections.