Employment-to-population ratio

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The Employment-to-population ratio is a statistical ratio which measures the proportion of the country's working-age population that is employed.

[edit] Use

The ratio is used to evaluate the ability of the economy to create jobs and therefore is used in conjunction with the unemployment rate and the employment rate for a general evaluation of the labour market stance. Having a high ratio means that an important proportion of the population in working age is employed, which in general will have positive effects on the GDP per head. Nevertheless, the ratio does not give an indication of working conditions, number of hours worked per person, earnings or the size of the black market. Therefore, the analysis of the labour market must be done in conjunction with other statistics.

To calculate the Employment-to-population ratio, one must first calculate the number of individuals in working-age, that is, over 15 years, and collect data on the number of employed people.

[edit] Employment-to-population ratio in the world

In general, a high ratio is considered to be above 70 percent of the working-age population whereas a ratio below 50 percent is considered to be low. The economies with low ratios are generally situated in the Middle East and North Africa.

Employment-to-population ratios are typically higher for men than for women. Nevertheless, in the past decades, the ratios tended to fall for men and increase in the case of women, which made the differences between both to be reduced.

Employment-to-population ratio in OECD countries
Persons aged 15-64 years (percentages)
Country	1994	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Australia	66.0	69.0	69.4	70.0	70.3	71.6
Austria	68.3	68.0	68.5	68.7	67.8	68.6
Belgium	55.7	59.7	59.7	59.3	60.5	61.0
Canada	67.0	70.8	71.4	72.2	72.5	72.5
Czech Republic	69.2	65.3	65.7	64.9	64.2	64.8
Denmark	72.4	75.9	76.4	75.1	76.0	75.5
Finland	59.9	67.7	67.7	67.4	67.2	68.0
France	58.4	62.0	62.2	62.5	62.4	62.3
Germany	64.5	65.8	65.3	64.6	65.0	65.5
Greece	54.1	55.6	57.7	58.9	59.6	60.3
Hungary	53.5	56.2	56.2	57.0	56.8	56.9
Iceland	78.5	84.6	82.8	84.1	82.8	84.4
Ireland	51.9	65.0	65.0	65.0	65.5	67.1
Italy	51.5	54.9	55.6	56.2	57.4	57.5
Japan	69.3	68.8	68.2	68.4	68.7	69.3
Korea	62.8	62.1	63.3	63.0	63.6	63.7
Luxembourg	60.2	63.0	63.6	62.7	62.6	63.6
Mexico	58.7	60.1	60.1	59.6	60.8	59.6
Netherlands	63.9	72.8	73.1	72.7	72.0	..
New Zealand	68.0	71.8	72.4	72.5	73.5	74.6
Norway	72.2	77.5	77.1	75.8	75.6	75.2
Poland	58.3	53.5	51.7	51.4	51.9	53.0
Portugal	64.0	68.6	68.1	67.1	67.8	67.5
Slovak Republic	59.8	56.9	56.9	57.7	57.0	57.7
Spain	47.4	58.8	59.5	60.7	62.0	64.3
Sweden	71.5	75.2	74.9	74.3	73.5	..
Switzerland	75.6	79.2	78.9	77.9	77.4	77.2
Turkey	52.4	47.8	46.7	45.5	46.1	45.9
United Kingdom	68.7	72.5	72.3	72.6	72.7	72.6
United States	72.0	73.1	71.9	71.2	71.2	71.5
EU-15	59.9	64.1	64.3	64.4	64.9	65.4
EU-19	59.9	62.9	62.9	63.0	63.5	64.0
OECD Europe	59.4	61.4	61.2	61.1	61.5	61.9
Total OECD	64.0	65.5	65.1	64.9	65.3	65.5