Australia
AU desk: Australia first; New Zealand, United States, United Kingdom, euro area, Korea and Taiwan alongside.
−0.27 pp
As of 2025 | % of population ages 15+
| Year | Value |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 63.82% |
| 2024 | 64.09% |
| 2023 | 64.56% |
| 2022 | 64.40% |
| 2021 | 62.83% |
| 2020 | 60.87% |
| 2019 | 62.69% |
| 2018 | 62.29% |
| 2017 | 61.60% |
| 2016 | 61.24% |
| 2015 | 61.13% |
| 2014 | 60.85% |
| 2013 | 61.34% |
| 2012 | 61.84% |
| 2011 | 62.18% |
| 2010 | 62.07% |
| 2009 | 61.86% |
| 2008 | 62.78% |
| 2007 | 62.41% |
| 2006 | 61.75% |
| 2005 | 61.26% |
| 2004 | 60.14% |
| 2003 | 59.94% |
| 2002 | 59.46% |
The employment-to-population ratio is employed people as a percent of the population ages 15+ (SL.EMP.TOTL.SP.ZS). It does not condition on being in the labour force. Latest: 63.82% in 2025.
It moves with both jobs and demography. From 1991 to 2025 (35 years): mean 60.67%, median 61.24%; low 55.79% (1993), high 64.56% (2023).
Source: World Bank Open Data. Licence: CC BY 4.0 (terms).
This series is the employment-to-population ratio for people aged 15 and over: the share of that population who are employed. The source is World Bank Open Data indicator SL.EMP.TOTL.SP.ZS, an ILO modelled estimate. It is not the unemployment rate. Students, retirees, people looking after a household and others outside the labour force are all in the denominator, so the ratio can fall even when unemployment is unchanged. The ratio also treats each employed person alike, whether they work an hour a week or a full year.
The indicator is modelled from national labour-force surveys and censuses and is revised when those inputs change. Population age structure and retirement ages differ between economies, so levels are not directly equivalent. The chart shows selected economies over the years you choose, and the ranked ledger shows each economy’s latest published year. Read the direction of travel and the broad level; small differences between neighbouring economies sit within the uncertainty of the estimates. Read it with the participation rate for context.
The Australia desk places Australia first and shows New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, the euro area, China, Japan, Korea and Singapore alongside it where the source publishes them. It republishes the same World Bank ILO modelled estimates as the all-countries pages, filtered to this set, without recalculating them for the desk. The headline unemployment page also shows Taiwan from the IMF World Economic Outlook, which the World Bank does not publish.
Use the Country selector to move between desks, the Chart and Table tabs for two views of the same data, and the range buttons to change the window. Indicator codes, sources and licences are named on every page so the figure can be traced. A blank row means the source has no value for the selected series, not that the rate has been set to zero. No value is estimated beyond what the source publishes.