Countries by Wage and salaried workers, total (% of total employment) (modeled ILO estimate)

Ranking 2025

Values shown in %.

Analysis

This metric measures the share of total employment made up by wage and salaried workers, expressed as a percentage. According to the World Bank World Development Indicators (indicator code SL.EMP.WORK.ZS), wage and salaried workers are those who hold the type of jobs defined as paid employment jobs, where the incumbents hold explicit (written or oral) or implicit employment contracts that give them a basic remuneration that is not directly dependent upon the revenue of the unit for which they work. Self-employed workers, unpaid family workers, and own-account workers are excluded. The dataset covers 186 countries, all with data from the last seven years, and 100% of datapoints are classified as official-quality estimates modeled by the ILO.

The top of the ranking is dominated by Gulf states and high-income economies. Qatar leads at 99.17% (Rank 1), followed by Bahrain at 97.56% (Rank 2) and Kuwait at 96.84% (Rank 3). Among non-Gulf countries, Norway ranks 4th at 95.13% and the United States ranks 8th at 93.93%. The Russian Federation (Rank 9, 93.68%) and Belarus (Rank 11, 93.17%) rank notably high among post-Soviet states. These countries share labor markets characterized by large formal employment sectors relative to self-employment and agriculture.

The middle of the ranking shows considerable variation. South Africa sits at Rank 53 with 82.73%, relatively high for sub-Saharan Africa, reflecting its historically formalized mining and services sectors. Greece ranks 88th at 69.54%, lower than most of Western Europe. India ranks 159th at just 25.10%, a notable placement for the world's most populous country, reflecting the large share of self-employed and informal workers in its labor market. Chad at Rank 186 (8.44%) and Niger at Rank 185 (10.52%) record the lowest shares, consistent with economies where subsistence agriculture and informal work predominate.

This metric has important limitations. The ILO modeled estimates are not direct measurements and may smooth over country-specific reporting gaps or methodological inconsistencies in underlying labor force surveys. The percentage reflects shares of employment, not absolute worker counts, so a small country with a highly formalized economy can rank above a much larger country regardless of total workforce size. Informal employment is by nature difficult to measure accurately, and undercounting in the self-employment or informal categories could artificially inflate the wage-worker share in some countries. Comparisons across countries at very different income levels should account for the structural role of subsistence agriculture and family enterprise, which this metric does not capture.

Methodology

Data are drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code SL.EMP.WORK.ZS, for the reference year 2025. The metric is defined using the ILO source note: wage and salaried workers are those workers who hold the type of jobs defined as paid employment jobs, where the incumbents hold explicit (written or oral) or implicit employment contracts that give them a basic remuneration that is not directly dependent upon the revenue of the unit for which they work. Values are modeled ILO estimates expressed as a percentage of total employment. The ranking covers 186 countries, all meeting the recency threshold of data within the last seven years, with 100% official-quality data points. No extreme outliers were detected using a 3-standard-deviation threshold. The average year-over-year change across the dataset is 1.0%, indicating high stability. Values range from 8.44% (Chad) to 99.17% (Qatar), a spread of approximately 1,075%. Microstates under one million population make up none of the 186 included countries.

Sources

• World Bank