The SDG Jobs Agenda Is Running Out of Time

March 29, 2026

3 min read

A decade later, the labour story is still off track

When the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted in 2015, decent work was positioned as both an outcome and an engine of development. But the ILO’s ten-year review, published by ILOSTAT on 19 March 2026, suggests the labour side of the agenda is still far from where it needs to be.

The problem is not that there has been no progress. It is that progress has been too slow, too unequal, or has stalled entirely across several of the indicators that matter most for security and inclusion.

Jobs alone are not ending poverty

The ILO says 284 million workers were still living in extreme poverty in 2025, equal to 7.9 percent of the global employed population. In Sub-Saharan Africa and the least developed countries, around 40 percent of workers remain working poor. The implication is uncomfortable but clear: employment by itself is not a guarantee of economic security.

Informality tells the same story. In 2025, 57.9 percent of the global employed population worked informally, barely changed from 57.4 percent in 2015. In least developed countries, informality still stands at 88.6 percent. That means hundreds of millions of workers remain outside the protections that make labour markets sustainable: legal safeguards, sick leave, unemployment support, and stable contracts.

Gender and youth gaps are still deeply structural

The ILO review also shows how unequal the world of work remains. Women earned 52.4 percent of men’s total labour income globally in 2025, up only modestly from 49.4 percent a decade earlier. Women made up 40.1 percent of employment, but held only 30.5 percent of managerial positions. In some regions, the leadership gap has widened rather than narrowed.

Young people are also moving in the wrong direction. The global share of young people not in employment, education or training rose to 20.0 percent in 2025 and is projected to reach 20.2 percent by 2027. The ILO says 4 million additional young people fell into NEET status in 2025 alone. Young women remain disproportionately affected.

For the first time, more than half of the world’s population – 52.4 percent – is covered by at least one social protection benefit. That is real progress. But the same dataset shows 3.8 billion people still lack any protection at all. In low-income countries, coverage reaches only 9.7 percent.

The distribution story is also deteriorating in quieter ways. Labour’s share of global GDP fell from 53.0 percent in 2015 to 52.6 percent in 2025, equivalent to roughly USD 196 PPP less per worker per year. And on labour rights, the ILO says the global weighted average for freedom of association and collective bargaining compliance has worsened by 6.4 percent since 2015.

Taken together, those indicators point to a basic problem: growth is not being converted into security, voice, and resilience nearly fast enough.

What happens next

With less than five years left until 2030, the labour agenda cannot be rescued by headline employment numbers alone. The ILO data suggest governments need to focus much more directly on wages, formality, social protection, youth inclusion, and labour rights. Otherwise the SDGs risk arriving on time only on paper while the world of work remains structurally unequal underneath.