Countries With the Highest Vulnerable Employment

Every country with a figure for vulnerable employment, ranked from highest to lowest. The top three are Chad (90.2%), Sierra Leone (86%) and Madagascar (84.4%). The middle country of the 187 has 28.4%.

What this measures

Vulnerable employment, total (% of total employment), in % of employment. Source: International Labour Organization. For this measure, higher is worse.

Self-employed workers and unpaid family workers, who have no employer and usually no protection. The ILO estimates it with a model for every country and year, which is why it is complete where surveys are not.

This measure mostly follows how rich a country is, so this ranking is close to a ranking by national income. Each country’s page also ranks it against countries with similar incomes, which is often the fairer comparison.

The full ranking

Each country’s latest figure, from 2021–2025. The year beside each value says when it was measured.

More on vulnerable employment

• Countries With the Lowest Vulnerable Employment
• Vulnerable employment by country: trend over time and what it goes with

Related rankings

• Countries With the Highest Active Labour Market Spending
• Countries With the Highest Unemployment Benefit Spending
• Countries With the Highest Retirement Age, Men
• Countries With the Highest Retirement Age, Women
• Countries With the Highest Hours Worked
• Countries With the Highest Informal Employment
• Countries With the Highest Unemployment
• Countries With the Highest Female Labor Participation

A ranking describes countries, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All country rankings.