Unemployment Rate by country
Share of the labor force without work but available and seeking employment.
Global trend
Mean stress score across all countries for which data is available, over the last 12 months.
Where the pressure is concentrated
The five most-affected and five least-affected countries on this indicator right now.
Most affected
- 1South Africa32.4 %100
- 2Spain10.4 %47
- 3Sweden8.69 %37
- 4Turkey8.52 %36
- 5France7.54 %31
Least affected
- 1UAE2.17 %1
- 2Japan2.45 %3
- 3Mexico2.67 %4
- 4South Korea2.68 %4
- 5Singapore2.82 %5
Full ranking
All 25 tracked countries, ordered from most to least affected. Click any country to see its full composite breakdown.
| # | Country | Raw value | Stress score | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Africa | 32.4 % | 100.0 | 2025-12-31 |
| 2 | Spain | 10.4 % | 46.5 | 2025-12-31 |
| 3 | Sweden | 8.69 % | 37.2 | 2025-12-31 |
| 4 | Turkey | 8.52 % | 36.2 | 2025-12-31 |
| 5 | France | 7.54 % | 30.8 | 2025-12-31 |
| 6 | Argentina | 7.15 % | 28.6 | 2025-12-31 |
| 7 | Canada | 6.91 % | 27.3 | 2025-12-31 |
| 8 | Italy | 6.39 % | 24.4 | 2025-12-31 |
| 9 | Brazil | 5.97 % | 22.1 | 2025-12-31 |
| 10 | New Zealand | 5.08 % | 17.1 | 2025-12-31 |
| 11 | Switzerland | 4.87 % | 16.0 | 2025-12-31 |
| 12 | United Kingdom | 4.75 % | 15.3 | 2025-12-31 |
| 13 | Norway | 4.64 % | 14.6 | 2025-12-31 |
| 14 | India | 4.22 % | 12.3 | 2025-12-31 |
| 15 | United States | 4.20 % | 12.2 | 2025-12-31 |
| 16 | Australia | 4.09 % | 11.6 | 2025-12-31 |
| 17 | Netherlands | 3.87 % | 10.4 | 2025-12-31 |
| 18 | Germany | 3.80 % | 10.0 | 2025-12-31 |
| 19 | Israel | 3.49 % | 8.3 | 2025-12-31 |
| 20 | Poland | 3.10 % | 6.1 | 2025-12-31 |
| 21 | Singapore | 2.82 % | 4.5 | 2025-12-31 |
| 22 | South Korea | 2.68 % | 3.8 | 2025-12-31 |
| 23 | Mexico | 2.67 % | 3.7 | 2025-12-31 |
| 24 | Japan | 2.45 % | 2.5 | 2025-12-31 |
| 25 | UAE | 2.17 % | 1.0 | 2025-12-31 |
Why it matters
Unemployment Rate is a contributing indicator to the Economic meta-index, one of the five dimensions of The Human Index composite. Higher raw value = more stress.
Movements in this indicator are tracked daily and feed into every country's composite score on the next cron cycle.
Recent analysis
All Pulses →Source & methodology
Raw values are normalized to a 0–100 stress scale per the bounds documented in the codebase. See methodology for the full normalization and band-threshold derivation.