Women outpace men in high-skill job growth, says ILO

Women are leading the global shift toward high-skill employment, outpacing men in roles such as managers and professionals, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

The ILO’s 2025 Employment Outlook report highlights a decade-long shift towards high-skill jobs up to 2023, though progress varies unevenly across countries by income level.

“The share of employment in high-skill occupations such as managers, professionals, and technicians and associate professionals was 18.9 per cent in 2013, and it increased to 20.1 per cent in 2023,” the report reads.

“High-income countries have been driving this trend, with the share of high-skill employment rising from 39.4 to 44.3 per cent, against declines in both medium-skill and low/medium skill employment.”

Notably, this general shift towards high-skill occupations is particularly pronounced for women.

In 2013, the share of women in high-skill employment was already higher than that of men, at 21.2 per cent, compared to men’s 17.5 per cent. By 2023, the findings show women’s share had risen to 23.2 per cent, outpacing the increase for men, whose share reached 18.0 per cent.

Ideally, this means that while men continue to make up the majority of the global workforce, women are making faster inroads into high-skill positions that demand advanced training and education.

Generally, the growth in high-skill occupations was primarily driven by workers employed as professionals.

Their share within total employment in the period under review increased from 8.7 to 10.4 per cent, reaching as high as 21.7 per cent in high-income countries.

Among the professionals, those working in the information and communications technology sector experienced the fastest growth, with their share of total employment going from 0.8 per cent to 1.3 per cent over the past decade.

Lower- and upper-middle-income countries are instead undergoing a gradual transition towards medium-skill occupations.

The share of employment in medium-skill occupations has risen from 30.9 to 36.5 per cent in lower-middle-income countries, and from 40.2 to 42.8 per cent in upper-middle-income countries.

This shift towards medium-skill employment has occurred alongside a decline in low/medium-skill employment, from 54.3 to 50.0 per cent in lower-middle-income countries and from 45.8 to 41.4 per cent in upper-middle-income countries.

However, lower-skill roles continue to dominate the occupational structure of the employed population in lower-middle-income countries.

According to the organisation, this suggests a steady occupational upgrading due to improvements in education and skill development, and economic restructuring.

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It says that over the past decade, the share of workers with an advanced educational qualification has increased from 25.7 to 29.8 per cent, with significant improvements in workers’ educational levels observed across all major occupational groups.

Despite this progress, the ILO cautions that gender-based occupational sorting remains entrenched.

It reckons that women are still underrepresented in sectors such as construction and mining, while they remain heavily concentrated in clerical support, caregiving and healthcare roles.

It gives an example of women accounting for 85 per cent of nursing and midwifery professionals as of 2023, while men held 94.7 per cent of jobs in mining and construction.