Employment is a key factor in self-sufficiency. On average, about 60% of the population over age 15 were employed in Asia/Pacific and OECD economies (58.2%) in 2017 (Figure 4.3). A large disparity is observed: three in four of population over age 15 are employed in Nepal and Viet Nam, while only one in three have a job in Lao PDR, Samoa and Timor-Leste.
On average, as among OECD economies, employment rates in the Asia/Pacific region recovered close to pre- Great Recession levels in 2017, and employment is now higher than in 2007 in almost half of the Asia/Pacific countries. However, the employment rebound has been unequal across countries. The largest increases in employment between 2007 and 2017 – above 4.0 percentage points, were recorded for Malaysia, Singapore and Sri Lanka.
People in high-income economies are more likely to work in the non-agricultural sector compared with those in low-income economies (Figure 4.4). Over 80% of people employed in Brunei Darussalam, Hong Kong, China, and Singapore are engaged in the service-sector with less than 1% of all employed in the agricultural sector. By contrast, the largest share of employed people in Korea DPR and Nepal – over 67%, are in the agricultural sector.
Informal employment prevails in Asia/Pacific economies (Figure 4.5). Two out of three workers in the non-agricultural sector are engaged in informal employment in Cambodia, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Timor-Leste. In contrast, informal employment only concerns one in six workers in Japan. Gender gaps in informal employment are small. Women in Korea, Lao PDR and Nepal are more likely to be in informal employment than men, but men are more likely to be involved in informal employment in countries that were part of the former Soviet Union, such as Armenia, the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan.
