Agricultural Employment
Agriculture still employs about one in four workers worldwide, roughly 916 million people, but its share has fallen from 43% in 1991 to 26.6% in 2023. The burden is wildly uneven: half of Sub-Saharan Africa's workforce farms, against just 3% in high-income economies. As countries grow richer, labor steadily shifts out of the fields and into industry and services.
Key Agricultural Employment Insights
A long, steady decline
The global share of workers in agriculture fell from 42.8% in 1991 to 26.6% in 2023 as economies industrialized and farm productivity rose. The shift is one of the most consistent patterns in development economics.
Geography is destiny
In 2023 farming employed 50.6% of Sub-Saharan Africa's workforce and 43.3% of South Asia's, versus 1.5% in North America. Where you are born largely determines whether you work the land.
Falls sharply with income
Low-income countries put 59.9% of workers in agriculture; lower-middle 39.8%; upper-middle 20.6%; high income just 3.1%. Structural transformation moves labor toward higher-value industry and services.
A heavily female sector
Women make up about 39.6% of the global agricultural workforce, and in many low-income countries farming is the single largest source of female employment, often informal and unpaid.
Share of the world's workers in agriculture, 1991-2023
Employment in agriculture as a percentage of total global employment, modelled ILO estimate.
Key Finding: Agriculture's share of world employment fell from 42.8% in 1991 to 26.6% in 2023, a drop of 16 percentage points in three decades.
Employment in agriculture by region, 2023
Percentage of total employment working in agriculture across world regions.
Key Finding: Sub-Saharan Africa (50.6%) and South Asia (43.3%) remain overwhelmingly agricultural, while North America (1.5%) and Europe & Central Asia (7.0%) have moved on.
Employment in agriculture by income group, 2023
Share of workers in agriculture across World Bank income classifications.
Key Finding: The share collapses with income: 59.9% in low-income countries down to 3.1% in high-income economies, a near twentyfold gap.
Number of agricultural workers worldwide, 2000-2023
People employed in agriculture, forestry and fishing, in millions.
Key Finding: Even as the share fell, the absolute count stayed near 0.9-1.0 billion, standing at about 916 million in 2023 as the working-age population grew.
Agricultural employment in selected countries, 2023
Share of total employment in agriculture across countries at different development stages.
Key Finding: Chad (71.9%) and Ethiopia (62.2%) sit at one extreme; the United States (1.6%) at the other, illustrating structural transformation across the income ladder.
Understanding Agricultural Employment Data
What the indicator measures
Employment in agriculture is the share of all employed people who work in agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing (ISIC divisions A-B). The headline figures come from the World Bank indicator SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS, which uses modelled estimates produced by the International Labour Organization (ILOSTAT) to harmonize national labor-force surveys across countries and years. It counts people, not output, so a country can have many farmers yet a small farm economy.
Structural transformation
As economies develop, labor moves out of agriculture into industry and then services, a process economists call structural transformation. Rising farm productivity means fewer workers can feed more people, while higher wages in cities pull labor away from the land. This is why agriculture's employment share tracks income so tightly, from roughly 60% in low-income countries to 3% in high-income ones.
Informal and subsistence work
Much agricultural work is informal, seasonal, subsistence or unpaid family labor, which surveys capture imperfectly. The line between 'employed in agriculture' and 'household food production' can be blurry, especially for women, so figures for the poorest countries carry wider uncertainty and can shift when survey methods change.
Why the share falls with development
A falling agricultural employment share is generally a sign of progress, not decline: it reflects mechanization, better yields and the growth of non-farm jobs rather than abandoned fields. The absolute number of farm workers can stay flat or even rise (about 916 million in 2023) while the share drops, because the overall workforce expands faster than agriculture sheds labor.