Only 26% of the population works full-time for an employer

Sometimes it is just a simple headline that makes a point. I am accustomed to looking at Labor Force Participation Rates, Unemployment Rates, Full Time versus Part Time Employment, etc. All quite interesting. The headline I read today was simple and surprising in an odd way. Odd in that though I knew this information already, I had never seen it put quite like this.

26% Worldwide Employed Full Time for Employer

This is from Gallup.

What they are measuring here is what we stereotypically accept as the norm for "working", an employee working full-time for an employer. This is made explicit by Gallup's definition.

The Good Jobs 2014 report presents the results from Gallup's latest global Payroll to Population (P2P) employment measurements, based on more than 182,000 interviews with adults in 144 countries in 2014. Gallup's P2P metric estimates the percentage of the adult population aged 15 and older -- not just those currently in the workforce -- who are employed full time for an employer for at least 30 hours per week. Gallup does not count adults who are self-employed, working part time, unemployed or out of the workforce as payroll-employed in the P2P metric. P2P is not seasonally adjusted.

What the headline makes explicit is that the norm or standard that we accept may possibly be the plurality of people in the labor force but it is certainly not the majority.

Not a lot of new information in the headline but certainly a refreshing reminder.