Africa's unemployment rate looks relatively low by global standards. In 2025, the continent's rate stood at 6.3%/series/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS). Yet the figure tells only part of the story. More than a third of employed Africans live in working poverty — they are employed but live below the international poverty line of $2.15 a day. Most workers are informally employed, and fewer than one in five people have social protection coverage.

Having a job does not necessarily mean earning enough to support a household, escaping poverty, or having protection when things go wrong. Understanding Africa's labour market therefore requires looking beyond the unemployment rate to examine the type of work people do and how secure their livelihoods are.

Most Africans work, but most work informally

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) defines the employment rate as the share of the working-age population that has worked at least one hour for pay or profit during a reference period of one week, or seven days. Under this definition, a person can be counted as employed even if they work for only a short stretch of time. The measure captures whether someone has work, but it does not, on its own, establish whether that work provides a secure livelihood.

Africa's working-age population is growing, with more young people entering the labour market each year. The World Bank estimates that Sub-Saharan Africa needs to create around 15 million jobs annually to absorb its growing working-age population. The bank's analysis links that challenge to firms across the region, which new data show are not growing. When formal employment does not expand quickly enough, people still need to make a living. Many turn to self-employment or find work in agriculture, trade, transport, construction, food services and other activities.

Much of this work takes place in the informal economy. In 2025, an estimated 84.4% of employed people in Africa were informally employed — the highest share of any world region. By the ILO's framework, such work is, in law or in practice, not subject to national labour legislation, income taxation or social protection. Informal employment does not necessarily mean a job is poorly paid, but when informality dominates a region, it raises important questions about workers' earnings, security and access to social protection.

Africa's labour market varies sharply by region

Continental averages conceal sharply different labour realities across Africa's regions, and in several subregions low unemployment coincides with high informal employment. In West Africa the unemployment rate stood at 2.9% in 2025, while 91.2% of employment was informal. Central Africa recorded an unemployment rate of 6.8% alongside an informal employment rate of 93.1%. Southern Africa, by contrast, posted an unemployment rate of 31.1% — substantially higher than the rest of the continent — while informal employment accounted for only 40% of employment in the region.

The regional contrasts become clearer when working poverty and social protection are weighed alongside unemployment and informality. In Central Africa, 57.7% of employed people were living in working poverty, while only 7.8% of the population was covered by at least one social protection benefit, such as healthcare, pensions, unemployment support or maternity benefits. Southern Africa, despite its high unemployment rate, recorded working poverty of 15.3% and social protection coverage of 59.1%.

For Western, Eastern and Central Africa, low unemployment coexists with widespread informal employment and limited social protection. Southern Africa, meanwhile, combines substantially higher unemployment with lower informality, less working poverty and broader social protection coverage.

Women face a wider gap in job security

Employment is not experienced equally by men and women. Africa is the only region where more women are informally employed than men. In 2025, 88.6% of employed African women were in informal employment, compared with 81.2% of employed men. Women are also more likely to experience working poverty and have lower social protection coverage.

Women on the continent also shoulder a disproportionate share of unpaid care and domestic work. The OECD estimates that women spend around 4.1 times as much time as men on these activities. That burden can limit the time available for paid work and narrow the opportunities women are able to pursue.

Measuring work means looking beyond unemployment

As Africa's working population grows, the number of jobs created will be important. More important still is the quality and security of those jobs — and whether employment improves the life of the average African worker.
That carries implications for how the continent measures labour market progress. Policymakers need to pay closer attention to job quality, productivity and social protection, because these measures give a fuller picture of whether economic growth is translating into better livelihoods. Those yardsticks already exist within international statistical systems: unemployment, informal employment, working poverty and social protection coverage are tracked in databases such as ILOSTAT and the World Bank's Sustainable Development Goals databank, and they feed into the United Nations' monitoring of decent work and poverty reduction. Future releases of these series will provide a running gauge of whether job quality is keeping pace with job creation. And as new forms of work emerge and technology changes how people work, the goal must extend beyond creating more opportunities for work. It should also ensure that those opportunities support a more productive economy and more secure livelihoods.