Social Protection

Building social protection floors
and comprehensive social security systems

img

Thematic areas

Unemployment

Providing unemployment protection for all

Baseline

  • Globally, 93 countries and territories have implemented unemployment protection schemes.
  • Only 16.7 per cent of unemployed workers worldwide actually receive unemployment benefits (SDG indicator 1.3.1), with large regional disparities.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the crucial role of unemployment protection schemes in ensuring income security for workers and their families. By facilitating structural change and a just transition for enterprises and workers in all sectors, unemployment protection programmes are also essential to support those adversely impacted by technological innovations and environmental and climate change.
  • Further efforts are required to adapt unemployment protection schemes to ensure coverage for workers in all types of employment, as well as young people, persons with disabilities, older workers, women, the long-term unemployed and persons engaged in flexible work arrangements.
Source: World Social Protection Report 2024-26: Universal social protection for climate action and a just transition - International Labour Office - Geneva: ILO, 2024

Standards and Guiding Principles

Key resources

Approach and Technical Support

The ILO approach pursues a twin objective: to ensure that individuals enjoy income security when they lose their earnings due to the inability to obtain suitable employment; and to promote full and productive employment. That objective can be achieved through unemployment insurance or assistance and is strategically linked with active labour market policies (ALMPs), which include high-quality public employment and social services; lifelong learning, skills development and vocational/ labour orientation and training services; and incentives for enterprises to facilitate work transitions and build more inclusive labour markets and social protection systems, paying special attention to marginalized groups.

  • Facilitate the tripartite dialogue between ministries of labour and employers’ and workers’ organizations to achieve informed decisions on the design and reforms of unemployment protection schemes;
  • Analyse of labour market indicators, as well as legal provisions and social protection programmes to protect against the risk of unemployment or labour underutilisation;
  • In a social dialogue, identify broad options for the unemployment protection scheme and support its articulation with existing provisions (such as severance payments);
  • Conduct an actuarial assessment to determine the cost and financial sustainability, as well as effective coverage and equity of various design options of the unemployment protection scheme (contribution rates, duration and level of benefits, qualifying periods), in agreement with the international social security standards. For this, the ILO/Unemployment Insurance generic actuarial model can be easily adapted to the specific context of each country;
  • Review existing employment support and active labour market policies and programmes, in particular public employment services, with a view to improve coordination with the unemployment protection scheme;
  • Design  operations and procedures, development of management information systems for registering applicants, processing claims and payments, and improve data interoperability with job placement and counselling services;
  • Support the design of the extension of unemployment protection policies and schemes to workers in all types of employment, including in the rural economy, focusing on access to decent and productive employment and linking with policies for the transition to formal economy; 
  • Adapt unemployment protection system to respond to climate change and ensure a just transition to an environmentally sustainable economy and society;
  • Support the dissemination, ratification and application of Convention No. 168 and Recommendation No. 176, including through legal and policy assessments and capacity-building to advance a better understanding of its strategic fit and content.

Under the thematic area of unemployment protection, the Flagship Programme will work on the following knowledge products and outputs.

  • Brief on the shortcomings of individual accounts to protection against unemployment,
  • Brief on the international standards on unemployment protection,
  • Country experiences on implementing unemployment protection system, linking with ALMPs,
  • Country experiences in extending unemployment insurance to self-employed, 
  • Brief on unemployment protection as an enabler of the climate action and just transition. 
  • Technical assistance to Member States to design or reform their unemployment protection schemes may be funded through trust-in-fund projects between the ILO and governments or social security institutions.
  • The Government of Spain through its cooperation agency AECID and ILO support Morocco in extending its unemployment insurance scheme to self-employed, 
  • The ILO maintains a long-standing partnership with the Government of Japan and the Republic of Korea for strengthening capacities and fostering the sharing of experiences among Asian countries.
  • The ILO works with the Caribbean countries to establish and strengthen their unemployment protection system to respond to climate change,
  • Building on the experience of the public–private partnership between the ILO and UNIQLO on strengthening unemployment protection in Indonesia, as well as the support to the garment industry during the COVID-19 pandemic with the the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ), the ILO continues to explore similar initiatives with the business sector,
  • The ILO and the EU supported the response to the COVID-19 pandemic through the global programme “Improving linkages between social protection and public finance management”.

ILO Projects and Programmes

See all
contribution.contributionId=0&years=2021;2024 &contribution.tags.tagId=٣٣&contribution.tags.tagId=٦&contribution.tags.tagId=٢٨

All interventions

Boundaries shown do not imply endorsement or acceptance by the ILO. Please click here for more details.

Indicators of results and impact

Results

See all

Publications

See all

News and Events

img

News | 09.09.2025

Persistent social protection gaps in Europe and Central Asia worsened by climate change impact

img

Events | 24.07.2024 - 04.07.2024

ILO and UNDP carry out training in Project Management to reduce informality in Angola

img

Events | 05.02.2025

Angola strengthens labour statistics to increase capacity to measure employment and labour underutilisation

img

News | 18.12.2024

Burundi updates list of occupational diseases to better protect workers and guarantee their right to a safe work environment

See all
Employment services ; Employment policy ; Unemployment
17.10.2025