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The record · 15 September 2026

Egypt and Brazil report the same 6.8% unemployment. In Brazil 59 adults in a hundred are in work; in Egypt, 42.

Eighteen economies, one year, two rates that share a word and not a denominator. One counts the people looking for work among those in the labour force; the other counts the people in work among every adult. Everything below is checkable against the live market.

· 7 min read

59.0%of people aged 15 and over in Brazil are in work, with an unemployment rate of 6.8%
41.6%of people aged 15 and over in Egypt are in work, with the same unemployment rate of 6.8%
83%of the differences in the working share across 182 economies come from how many people are in the labour force, not from unemployment

Same rate, different countries

Egypt and Brazil report the same unemployment rate for 2024: 6.8% of the labour force, 6.817% and 6.801% before rounding, 61st and 62nd of the 182 economies with the figure. On this measure the two are neighbours.

On the share of adults in work they are not. In Brazil 59.0% of people aged 15 and over are in work; in Egypt 41.6%, 17.5 points fewer. Brazil is 82nd of 182 on that share, Egypt 160th. The rate that gets quoted places them side by side; the share that counts everybody places 77 economies between them.

The table sets them among the sixteen economies this desk publishes in. Viet Nam has the highest working share of the eighteen at 72.0% and Morocco the lowest at 40.1%, 165th of 182. Portugal, in the table, and Italy, outside it, report the same 6.5% unemployment with working shares of 54.6% and 46.4%. Spain, at 11.4%, has the highest unemployment of the eighteen and still a higher working share than Egypt, Morocco or Türkiye.

Provenance: Source
Unemployment rate, labour force participation and the share of people aged 15 and over who are in work, 2024, for eighteen economies. Sorted by the working share, highest first. The first column is a share of the labour force; the other two are shares of everyone aged 15 and over. The rank is out of the 182 economies reporting all three series.
EconomyUnemployment rateIn the labour forceIn workRank of 182, by share in work
Viet Nam1.6%73.1%72.0%19
Thailand0.8%67.1%66.6%31
Indonesia3.3%67.9%65.7%36
South Korea2.8%64.5%62.7%54
China4.6%64.9%61.9%58
Japan2.5%63.3%61.7%59
Philippines2.2%61.4%60.0%74
Brazil6.8%63.3%59.0%82
United Kingdom4.4%61.6%58.9%85
Germany3.4%60.9%58.8%86
Poland2.8%58.7%57.0%99
Portugal6.5%58.4%54.6%117
India4.2%55.6%53.3%125
France7.4%55.7%51.5%133
Spain11.4%57.8%51.2%135
Türkiye8.8%54.2%49.4%145
Egypt6.8%44.6%41.6%160
Morocco9.1%44.1%40.1%165

Where the difference comes from

The working share is the participation rate times one minus the unemployment rate, so the gap between any two countries can be split between the two. Measured across all 182 economies, 83% of the differences in the working share come from participation and 17% from unemployment. The working share moves with participation almost one for one, correlation plus 0.97; with unemployment the correlation is minus 0.63.

The split shows in a band of near-identical rates. Among the 25 economies whose unemployment lies between 4.5% and 5.5%, the working share runs from 41.0% in Samoa to 69.0% in Peru: twenty-eight points of difference among countries whose headline rate is, to the nearest point, the same. Among the seven economies within a quarter of a point of Egypt and Brazil, it runs from 35.6% in Tajikistan to 73.5% in Mozambique.

Egypt and Brazil sit on that same line. Brazil has 63.3% of its adults in the labour force and Egypt 44.6%, and the identical unemployment rate then takes the same 6.8% from each. Nearly all of the 17.5 points between them are already there before anyone is counted as unemployed.

Provenance: SourceWhat each rate counts
  1. The unemployment rate counts people without work who are available and looking for it, as a share of the LABOUR FORCE: the people working plus the people looking.
  2. The working share counts people in work, as a share of EVERYONE aged 15 and over: students, retirees, people caring for a family and people who have stopped looking included.
  3. A person outside the labour force is in neither half of the unemployment fraction. The share of adults not in work is therefore always larger than the unemployment rate, usually by a lot.

So 58 adults in a hundred not being in work in Egypt does not mean 58% are unemployed: 6.8% of the labour force is. Most of the 58 are not looking for work and are not counted as unemployed anywhere. Brazil has the same 6.8% because, among the people who are working or looking, the same share is looking. It has 17.5 more adults in a hundred in work because more of its adults are in the labour force to begin with.

The two rates in the headline share a word and not a denominator, and reading one as the other is the mistake the piece is about.

What the working share does not say

It does not say that Egypt has hidden unemployment. Unemployment has a definition, and the 58 adults in a hundred who are not in work in Egypt are mostly not looking for work: students, retirees, people running a household, people who have stopped looking. None of them is unemployed in this measure or in any other.

It does not say that a higher share is a better economy. Madagascar has the third highest working share of the 182 at 82.9% and Nigeria the sixth at 80.1%; Qatar, first at 87.1%, counts a population that is mostly migrant workers. A share can be high because people cannot afford not to work.

And it names no cause. Retirement ages, schooling, women’s participation, age structure and informal work all shape who is in the labour force, and none of them is in these three figures. The 83% is arithmetic across countries, not an explanation of any one of them.

What the data establishes

  • In 2024 Egypt and Brazil both reported an unemployment rate of 6.8% of the labour force, 61st and 62nd of 182 economies.
  • In Brazil 59.0% of people aged 15 and over were in work; in Egypt 41.6%, 17.5 points fewer. Brazil ranked 82nd of 182 on that share and Egypt 160th.
  • Across the 182 economies, 82.8% of the variance of the working share is attributable to participation and 17.2% to unemployment. The working share correlates +0.97 with participation and -0.63 with unemployment.
  • Among the 25 economies with unemployment between 4.5% and 5.5%, the working share runs from 41.0% (Samoa) to 69.0% (Peru).

What it does not

  • That Egypt has hidden unemployment. Most adults not in work are outside the labour force and are not unemployed in this or any measure.
  • That adults outside the labour force are idle. Students, retirees, carers and people who have stopped looking are all in that group.
  • Any cause, including law, culture, oil, informality, schooling or age structure. None of them is in these figures.
  • That a higher working share means a better economy. Madagascar and Nigeria have two of the highest shares of the 182.
  • Anything about 2025 or 2026, or about the 35 economies in the World Bank list that do not report all three series for 2024.

Method

  1. One source, one year, three series. World Bank Open Data SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS (unemployment, % of total labour force), SL.TLF.CACT.ZS (labour force participation rate, % of total population aged 15+) and SL.EMP.TOTL.SP.ZS (employment to population ratio, % of population aged 15+). All are modelled ILO estimates. Reference year 2024, read on 15 September 2026, dataset last updated 2026-07-13 by the source’s own stamp.
  2. AGGREGATES ARE NOT COUNTRIES. Regional and income-group totals carry three-letter codes like countries do, and were removed using the World Bank’s own flag for them, leaving 182 economies with all three series for 2024 out of the 217 in its country list. Every rank and count here is out of those 182.
  3. THE SPLIT IS AN IDENTITY. The working share equals participation times one minus the unemployment rate; the source’s three series satisfy it to within 0.001 of a point for every economy. In logarithms the identity becomes a sum, and the share of the variance of the working share attributable to each term is its variance plus its covariance with the other, divided by the total: 82.8% for participation, 17.2% for unemployment. Each economy counts once, whatever its population.
  4. The correlations are Pearson coefficients across the 182 economies. They describe how the three rates move together across countries, not within any one country over time.
  5. Rounding is done once, at display. Egypt’s and Brazil’s rates are 6.817% and 6.801%, both shown as 6.8%; the 17.5-point gap is computed from the unrounded working shares 59.031 and 41.556. The eighteen economies are the market of each language this desk publishes in, plus Egypt.

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