The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
Labour markets change continuously as sectors grow and shrink, technology shifts tasks, populations age and climate policy reshapes industries. The effects show up in which jobs exist, where, on what contracts and at what pay. This page sets out how labour market change happens, how it is measured with standard classifications, and what evidence serves the labour ministries, employers and unions who respond to it.
GCRI · In development · service level R0
Labour market change is the ongoing shift in which jobs exist, where, on what contracts and at what pay. Sectoral shifts move workers, temporary and on-call contracts have grown in many countries, demography reshapes labour supply, and climate change and policy reallocate jobs between industries and places.
Population density, night-time lights, air quality, heat and floods, framed on Southeast Asia; each layer is a dated NASA product.
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People and exposure
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NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Natural Earth
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Population density, night-time lights, air quality, heat and floods, framed on Southeast Asia.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
Layers and dates
Sector employment and occupational risk. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Employment moves from agriculture and manufacturing toward services as economies develop, and from declining to growing industries during transitions.
Temporary, part-time, on-call and platform work have grown in many countries, changing security, benefits and bargaining power.
Ageing reduces the working-age population in some countries, while young populations in others need many new jobs each year.
Heat, extreme weather and decarbonisation affect jobs in agriculture, construction, energy and transport, creating and ending work in different places.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Labour underutilisation | A measure combining unemployment, underemployment and the potential labour force. |
| Employment-to-population ratio | The share of the working-age population that is employed at a given time. |
| Non-standard employment | Work that is temporary, part-time, on-call or otherwise outside an open-ended full-time contract. |
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Employment-to-population ratio | percent | quarterly | Labour force surveys | OFFICIAL |
| Employment by sector and occupation | percent of employment | annual | Labour force surveys using ISCO | OFFICIAL |
| Temporary employment | percent of employees | annual | Labour force surveys | OFFICIAL |
| Labour underutilisation | percent of extended labour force | quarterly | Labour force surveys | OFFICIAL |
| Job vacancy rate | percent of posts vacant | quarterly | Vacancy surveys | OFFICIAL |
| Real median wage | currency units in constant prices | annual | Wage statistics | OFFICIAL |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| ILOSTAT | Employment, unemployment, underutilisation and wages | Open, CC BY 4.0 |
| OECD Employment Outlook and labour statistics | Labour market trends and policy analysis | Public, OECD terms |
| Eurostat labour force survey | Employment by sector, occupation and contract type | Open, Eurostat reuse policy |
| National labour force surveys | Employment structure | Licence per statistics office |
| Online job posting data summaries | Demand by occupation and skill | Commercial; public summaries (to check) |
Future of Work and Skills prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Labour ministries | Which sectors and groups need transition support | Change profiles; scenarios |
| Employers' organizations and unions | What to negotiate on contracts and transitions | Job quality evidence |
| Public employment services | Where to focus job matching and training | Vacancy and underutilisation evidence |
Technology changes the relative productivity of tasks, shifting demand towards skills that complement it. Trade and global value chains move production between countries. Demographic ageing shrinks labour supply in some economies and increases demand for care work. Consumer demand shifts as incomes rise. Public policy, from minimum wages to industrial strategy, shapes all of these.
Change is uneven. Earlier computerisation reduced demand for routine middle-skill jobs in many economies, a pattern called job polarisation. Workers displaced from declining industries often face lasting earnings losses, especially older workers and those in places with few alternatives.
Employment, hours and earnings by sector and occupation. Informal work is poorly captured in many countries.
Measures of exposure to automation, trade or climate built from task data, using economics and development economics. Exposure is not the same as job loss.
Following workers after job loss with linked data and econometrics. Such data exist in relatively few countries.
Near-real-time signals of skill demand. Online postings over-represent some occupations and regions.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.