Labor share of gross domestic product (GDP)

Description: Labour share of GDP (%).
Data source: International Labour Organization – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Unit: %
Date range: 2004-2025
Last updated: 2026-07-31
Next expected update: 2027-07-31

This indicator is calculated using compensation of employees (wages and salaries in cash and in kind benefits, and social contributions paid by employers) and labor income of the self-employed (the part of the remuneration attributable for work done by self-employed workers).

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How did Our World in Data process this 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.

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Documentation from data sources

Principal data source

Labour share of GDP (%)

Further information available at: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-10-04-01.pdf

Data sources

International Labour Organization – ILO modelled estimates, May 2025

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.

International Labour 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-10-04-01.pdf.

How to cite

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: Labor share of gross domestic product (GDP)”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from International Labour Organization. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20261014-113329/grapher/labor-share-of-gdp.html [online resource] (archived on October 14, 2026).

How to cite this data

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

International Labour Organization – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

International Labour Organization – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Labor share of gross domestic product (GDP)” [dataset]. International Labour Organization, “ILO modelled estimates, May 2025” [original data]. Retrieved October 14, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20261014-113329/grapher/labor-share-of-gdp.html (archived on October 14, 2026).

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. 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.

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