Australia
AU desk: Australia first; New Zealand, United States, United Kingdom, euro area, Korea and Taiwan alongside.
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As of 2025 | % of female labour force
| Year | Value |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 4.05% |
| 2024 | 3.83% |
| 2023 | 3.57% |
| 2022 | 3.67% |
| 2021 | 4.87% |
| 2020 | 6.34% |
| 2019 | 5.10% |
| 2018 | 5.40% |
| 2017 | 5.67% |
| 2016 | 5.78% |
| 2015 | 6.07% |
| 2014 | 6.17% |
| 2013 | 5.61% |
| 2012 | 5.33% |
| 2011 | 5.31% |
| 2010 | 5.38% |
| 2009 | 5.41% |
| 2008 | 4.58% |
| 2007 | 4.79% |
| 2006 | 4.93% |
| 2005 | 5.22% |
| 2004 | 5.54% |
| 2003 | 5.98% |
| 2002 | 6.17% |
Female unemployment is ILO modelled unemployment among women in the female labour force (SL.UEM.TOTL.FE.ZS). Latest: 4.05% in 2025.
Compare it with the male series on this site; a gap can reflect both joblessness and who is counted in the labour force. From 1991 to 2025 (35 years): mean 6.12%, median 5.67%; low 3.57% (2023), high 10.00% (1993).
Source: World Bank Open Data. Licence: CC BY 4.0 (terms).
This series is the unemployment rate for women: women without work who are available for and actively seeking it, as a share of the female labour force. The source is World Bank Open Data indicator SL.UEM.TOTL.FE.ZS, an ILO modelled estimate that uses the same definition as the all-ages rate. It says nothing about how many women work; it describes joblessness among women who are in the labour market. The gap with the male series can reflect joblessness, but it can also reflect differences in participation, because people outside the labour force are not counted as unemployed.
The chart plots annual observations for the economies you select; the range buttons shorten the period and the legend or table adds and removes lines. The ranked ledger shows each economy’s latest published year, and those years differ. Read the female and male series together, and check participation, before drawing a conclusion about labour-market conditions. The values are modelled estimates built from national surveys and censuses and revised as inputs change.
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.