Unemployment Is at a Historic Low, So Why Are People Around Us Still Struggling to Find Good Jobs?

I. A Low Rate Does Not Mean Fewer People Need Jobs

Why is the unemployment rate in the news so low, yet there always seem to be people out of work around us? The primary mechanism lies in this: a low unemployment rate coexists with a massive jobless population.

According to forecasts by the International Labour Organization, the global unemployment rate will remain at a historic low of 4.9% in 2026. However, due to the massive population and labor force base, this seemingly extremely low rate translates to as many as 186 million unemployed people in absolute numbers. In other words, nearly 200 million people worldwide are in the standard state of unemployment—’without a job, actively seeking work, and available to start immediately.’

Furthermore, the strict statistical definition of the unemployment rate misses an even larger group. To truly reflect the situation of people who ‘want to work but cannot find jobs,’ the report introduces the ‘jobs gap’ indicator. The global jobs gap is projected to reach 408 million people in 2026. In addition to the 186 million standard unemployed, this includes 222 million invisibly jobless individuals. They are willing to work but cannot start immediately due to responsibilities such as unpaid family care, or have given up searching due to long-term frustration. Although not counted as ‘unemployed,’ they face pervasive survival pressures.

II. Two Billion Makeshift Jobs Beyond Statistical Indicators

Even when counting those who ‘have a job,’ employment quality does not equate to a ‘good job.’ The second mechanism behind this is the massive scale of informal employment.

Statistically, even working just one hour of gig work a week counts as employment. The report notes that in 2026, as many as 2.1 billion workers worldwide will still be in informal employment. This means nearly 60% of the global workforce lacks basic social security, employment contracts, rights protection, and safe working environments.

In many low-income regions, such jobs mostly take the form of self-employment, unpaid family work, or precarious gig work that could dry up at any moment. They offer no stable income security, and many are just barely scraping by. Worryingly, in 2025, 284 million workers globally still live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $3 a day. For these nearly 300 million people, ‘having a job’ is merely a struggle for survival, and decent work remains incredibly far out of reach.

III. Slowing Industrial Transformation Slows the Creation of Quality Jobs

Why can’t all makeshift jobs be upgraded? This involves the third mechanism: the pace of global industrial transformation and upgrading is slowing down significantly.

In the past, improving job quality relied mainly on transformation, namely the shift of workers from low-efficiency agriculture to higher-efficiency manufacturing and modern services. However, the report points out that the speed of global labor mobility across sectors has slowed severely, with the pace of industrial transformation over the past decade being almost half that of the previous decade.

There are complex macroeconomic obstacles behind this. In recent years, rising uncertainty in global trade policies has hindered the expansion of export manufacturing and supply chains, which would otherwise provide a large number of quality jobs. When the creation of formal jobs fails to keep pace with population growth, large numbers of new workers cannot enter modern industries and are left stranded in low-end services or informal jobs, continuing to make do.

IV. Pressure on the Younger Generation and Rising Workplace Entry Barriers

In this supply-demand imbalance, the most affected are the younger generation just starting out.

In 2025, the global youth unemployment rate climbed to 12.4%, while the proportion of youth neither employed nor in education or training reached as high as 20.0%. This means 257 million young people worldwide are missing out on the opportunity to accumulate work experience and labor skills right at the starting line.

Even highly educated youth cannot rest easy. In low- and middle-income regions, highly educated youth actually face higher unemployment rates than those with less education, as the scarcity of quality jobs leads to educational mismatch, forcing many to endure long waits. Meanwhile, the promotion of new technologies represented by artificial intelligence, while not completely replacing occupations, has begun to impact entry-level positions in high-skill fields, further raising the barrier to entry for quality workplaces.

When we see young people on the subway with their heads down, swiping through gig apps and looking for the next dispatch opportunity, we realize that a stable unemployment rate does not mean a thriving labor market. To bridge the massive global deficit in decent work, relying solely on the natural spillover of economic growth is far from enough; it requires deeper social protection and industrial transformation.

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Source institutions：International Labour Organization

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