Labor market and poverty
Employment conditions and household vulnerability in annual ENEMDU 2025
Labor and income poverty
Labor market and poverty
Employment conditions and household vulnerability in annual ENEMDU 2025.
Having work is central to household wellbeing, but employment alone does not guarantee that a household is above the income-poverty line. This page reads labor attachment, job quality and poverty together without treating one as a cause of the other.
What this view covers
- Period
- Annual ENEMDU 2025
- Source
- Curated aggregate site output
- Coverage
- National, urban and rural
- Reading
- Employment, job quality and poverty profiles
Public question
Why having work does not always mean being out of poverty
Poverty is measured through household per-capita income, not only through whether a person has a job. That distinction is crucial: a person can be employed and still live in a household whose total income is below the income-poverty line.
The national profile shows that poverty among employed people is 15.9%, while poverty among unemployed people is 25.8% and poverty among people outside the labor force is 21.9%. The estimated number of people in poverty is largest among employed people, at about 1,317,829.
Share of people age 15 and older in the labor force.
Share of people age 15 and older who are employed.
Share of people age 15 and older outside the labor force.
Share of the labor force that is unemployed.
Labor-market structure
Who is attached to the labor market?
The first reading separates labor-force attachment from unemployment. Many people are outside the labor force, while unemployment is measured only among people in the labor force.
Employment quality
Work status is not enough
Among employed people, adequate/full employment reaches 38.5% and subemployment reaches 20.1%. This is why the labor layer looks beyond the employed/unemployed split: job quality changes how employment should be read alongside household income poverty.
Poverty by labor condition
Executive table
| Labor condition | Poverty rate | Extreme poverty rate | Estimated people in poverty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employed | 15.9% | 5.0% | 1,317,829 |
| Unemployed | 25.8% | 11.1% | 77,779 |
| Outside the labor force | 21.9% | 5.9% | 1,039,215 |
The table compares broad labor conditions, not provinces or cities. The count column shows where the largest number of people in poverty is concentrated, while the poverty-rate columns show exposure within each labor condition.
Poverty profile
Poverty is not only a story about unemployment
Unemployment is associated with a high poverty rate, but it accounts for a smaller estimated number of people in poverty than employment. The national estimate shows about 1,039,215 people in poverty outside the labor force, another reminder that household vulnerability extends beyond the labor-force headline.
Urban-rural reading
Labor and poverty differ by domain
| Domain | Labor participation | Employment among people 15+ | Unemployment | Poverty among employed people |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| National | 64.3% | 62.0% | 3.6% | 15.9% |
| Urban | 61.2% | 58.4% | 4.5% | 9.7% |
| Rural | 71.0% | 69.6% | 1.9% | 27.1% |
Urban and rural rows are included only for the supported annual domains in the curated output. They help compare labor attachment and poverty exposure without turning this page into a territorial ranking.
Reading notes
These estimates are analytical and descriptive. They are based on public ENEMDU annual 2025 microdata and are published here only through a curated aggregate output. They are not an official INEC validation, do not make causal claims, and should be read together with Measurement and statistical quality.
Income poverty
Read the household-income threshold behind the poverty measure.
Territory
Compare incidence and concentration across provinces.
Labor
Read employment, job quality and household vulnerability together.
Measurement
Keep domains, uncertainty and publication limits visible.