Our World
in Data
Oxford Martin School logoUniversity of Oxford logoGlobal Change Data Lab logo

What you should know about this indicator

The manufacturing sector is defined according the International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities (ISIC). It refers to industries belonging to sector C in revision 4 or sector D in revision 3.

How is this data described by its producer?

Manufacturing employment as a proportion of total employment - 13th ICLS (%)

Further information available at: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-09-02-02.pdf

Manufacturing jobs as a share of total employment
Manufacturing employment as a proportion of total employment - 13th ICLS (%).
Source
United Nations Industrial Development Organization – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
July 31, 2026
Next expected update
July 2027
Date range
2000–2025
Unit
%

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

United Nations Industrial Development Organization – Data from multiple sources

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) dataset is the primary collection of data tracking progress towards the SDG indicators, compiled from officially-recognized international sources.

Retrieved on
July 31, 2026
Retrieved from
https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/dataportal
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
United Nations Industrial Development Organization via UN SDG Indicators Database (https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/dataportal), UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (accessed 2026). More information available at: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-09-02-02.pdf.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) dataset is the primary collection of data tracking progress towards the SDG indicators, compiled from officially-recognized international sources.

Retrieved on
July 31, 2026
Retrieved from
https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/dataportal
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
United Nations Industrial Development Organization via UN SDG Indicators Database (https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/dataportal), UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (accessed 2026). More information available at: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-09-02-02.pdf.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Manufacturing jobs as a share of total employment”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from United Nations Industrial Development Organization. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260825-095854/grapher/manufacturing-share-of-total-employment.html [online resource] (archived on August 25, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

United Nations Industrial Development Organization – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

United Nations Industrial Development Organization – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Manufacturing jobs as a share of total employment” [dataset]. United Nations Industrial Development Organization, “Data from multiple sources” [original data]. Retrieved August 25, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260825-095854/grapher/manufacturing-share-of-total-employment.html (archived on August 25, 2026).

Download

Quick download

You can download the visualization as an image or download the chart data.