The unemployment rate is the share of the labour force without work but available for and seeking work. World Bank indicator SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS, ILO modelled estimates — a common definition across economies, not a national labour-force survey. Latest: 4.63% in 2025.
A rise is more people unemployed relative to the labour force, not necessarily more people out of work if participation also moves. From 1991 to 2025 (35 years): mean 8.53%, median 6.71%; low 3.68% (2001), high 15.77% (1991).
This series is the unemployment rate: people without work who are available for and actively seeking work, as a share of the labour force. The labour force is the employed plus the unemployed; students, retirees and unpaid carers are outside it. The source is World Bank Open Data indicator SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS, an ILO modelled estimate, so the definition is held constant across economies rather than taken from each national survey. Taiwan’s headline rate is republished from the IMF World Economic Outlook.
The chart plots annual observations for the economies you select; the range buttons shorten the window and the legend or table adds and removes lines. The ranked ledger shows each economy’s latest published year, and those years differ, so read the year label before comparing. Modelled estimates are revised when national data change, so a rebuild can print a different past value. Read this rate with participation and the employment ratio, because unemployment can fall when people leave the labour force as well as when they find work.
About this desk
The Ireland desk places Ireland first and shows the euro area, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and France alongside it, as far as each source publishes them. It republishes the same World Bank ILO modelled estimates as the all-countries pages, filtered to this desk; the build does not recompute anything. Taiwan is shown only on the headline unemployment page, where the rate is filled from the IMF World Economic Outlook because the World Bank does not publish it.
Move between desks with the Country selector, read the same numbers through the Chart and Table tabs, and shorten the period with the range buttons. Every page prints its indicator, source and licence. Ireland’s figures are national series in the World Bank collection, separate from the euro-area aggregate shown beside them. Where the source does not publish an Irish value, the related economies are shown.