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Unemployment, total (% of total labor force)

Indicator id: unemployment_rate · Unit: % · Coverage: 1991-2024

Share of the labour force that is without work but available for and seeking employment (modelled ILO estimate).

Sources

Reconciliation note: ILOSTAT's UNE_DEAP_SEX_AGE_RT is the direct labour force survey estimate (total, ages 15+), reported only in the years Nepal ran an NLFS round (1996, 1999, 2003, 2008, 2015, 2017); the World Bank's SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS is a smoothed modelled annual series. The two converge almost exactly in 2017 (verified live: 10.66% both) but ILOSTAT sits far below the Bank's figure before it (1.4-4.5%). That is a real break in Nepal's own survey methodology, not a data error: Nepal's LFS moved from an extended activity definition (which classified most subsistence/unpaid economic activity as employment, pushing measured unemployment very low) to the standard ICLS-19 definition around the 2017/18 NLFS III round.

Caveats

Modelled ILO estimate; Nepal's official unemployment figures undercount underemployment and disguised unemployment in subsistence agriculture, a known limitation of the headline unemployment rate for agrarian economies.

Taxonomy

SDG: SDG 8.5 -- Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all
Topic: Social Protection & Labor
Themes: economy

Also known as

"unemployment", "unemployment rate", "joblessness", "how many people are unemployed"

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