In February 2025 (Q1), the working age population (16 years and above) was around 8.4 million of whom around 4.7 million were employed, 593 thousand were unemployed, and 3.1 million were out of labour force.
The labour force comprises 5.3 million people, which includes both the employed and unemployed population. The proportion of working age population who were in the labour force has steadily increased since 2022.
TABLE 1: Distribution of employed population (,000) by status in employment as per ICSE-93
Status in employment |
2020Q1 |
2021Q1 |
2022Q1 |
2023Q1 |
2024Q1 |
2025Q1 | % change 2024Q1- 2025Q1 |
| Total | 3,569 | 3,205 | 3,586 | 3,804 | 4,366 | 4,730 | 8.4% |
| Employee | 2,449 | 2,400 | 2,696 | 2,664 | 3,036 | 3,176 | 4.6% |
| Employer | 46 | 31 | 57 | 64 | 77 | 101 | 31.3% |
| Own account worker | 923 | 719 | 769 | 965 | 1,123 | 1,244 | 10.8% |
| Member of cooperative | 9 | 5 | 1 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 82.7% |
| Contributing familyworker | 143 | 50 | 62 | 104 | 128 | 205 | 60.5% |
In February 2025, it was estimated to be 63.0 % which is 2 percentage points higher than the estimated value in February 2024 (61.0 %). The rate of the population outside labour force decreased to 37 % in February 2025 (Q1) from 39 % in February 2024 (Q1).
TABLE 2: Distribution of employed population (,000) by occupations
| MajorOccupation group | 2022Q1 | 2023Q1 | 2024Q1 | 2025Q1 | %change |
| 2024Q1-2025Q1 | |||||
| Total | 3,586 | 3,804 | 4,366 | 4,730 | 8.4% |
| Managers | 44 | 31 | 61 | 47 | -23.8% |
| Professionals | 211 | 202 | 284 | 267 | -5.7% |
| Technicians and associate professionals | 25 | 27 | 67 | 79 | 17.2% |
| Clerical support workers | 24 | 34 | 46 | 44 | -4.7% |
| Service and sales workers | 507 | 675 | 700 | 895 | 27.9% |
| Skilled agricultural, forestry and fisheryworkers | 160 | 211 | 289 | 350 | 21.1% |
| Craft andrelated trades workers | 254 | 285 | 319 | 363 | 13.7% |
| Plant and machine operators and assemblers | 99 | 106 | 123 | 142 | 14.8% |
| Elementary occupations | 2261 | 2233 | 2476 | 2544 | 2.7% |
Generally, the labour force participation rate has been higher among the male than the female population over time. In February 2021 (Q1), the gender gap in labour force participation rate was approximately 13 percentage points, it decreased by 1.6 percentage points as compared to the same quarter one year back.