Only 1.3 billion people, or one in four adults, globally worked full time for an employer in 2013, according to an international survey. The United Arab Emirates tops the list with 59% of the people holding a regular job – working at least 30 hours per week, with an employer.
The survey was conducted by U.S. research and management consultancy firm Gallup, which polled more than 136,000 people in 136 countries around the world. According to its results, released on Tuesday, only a quarter of the world was employed full time. This is roughly 1.3 billion people aged 15 and above, the researchers say. The Global Payroll to Population study, or the so-called P2P rate, shows that the adult population working what is considered a regular job hasn’t grown since 2012. The countries with the highest P2P rates are either extremely rich and with high GDP per capita, or have a large proportion of the population employed in the public sector and in government-own companies.
2013 Global Payroll to Population Rate
- United Arab Emirates – 59%
- Iceland – 54%
- Bahrain – 53%
- Sweden – 53%
- Russia – 51%
- Kuwait – 49%
- Belarus – 47%
- Israel – 47%
- Latvia – 44%
- United States of America – 43%
According to the data, the UAE has the largest percentage of full time employees in the world. Only 20% of the surveyed were Emirati, while 40% were Arab expatriates and another 40% were non-Arab expats. The high P2P rate in the UAE indicates that the country offers an attractive environment for workers – a full-time employment, with various social benefits, and tax-free salaries. Bahrain, Kuwait and Israel also appear in the top 10, but the high unemployment and low workforce participation in countries such as Egypt, Iraq, Yemen and Morocco, pull down the total P2P rate for the MENA region to 19%. Also, the region has one of the lowest workforce participation rates for women – around three-quarters of women in Morocco, Egypt and Yemen are simply out of the workforce.
The country with the lowest P2P rate in the world, according to the Gallup survey, is Burkina Faso, where only 5% of the adults work full time for an employer. The other nations reporting extremely poor performance are Haiti (6%), Malawi (6%), Niger (6%),, Ethiopia (7%), Sierra Leone (7%),, Guinea (8%), Liberia (8%), Mali (8%), Chad (9%), Nepal (9%), and Tanzania (9%).
