The Kurdistan Region released its first comprehensive labor force survey in a decade in late 2022, providing crucial insights into the changing employment landscape across its four governorates. The 2021 survey, conducted through collaboration between international and local statistical organizations, reveals a region with higher workforce participation than the rest of Iraq, but facing significant hurdles in gender equality and youth employment.
Gender disparities persist despite higher regional participation
Kurdistan’s overall labor force participation rate of 45% surpasses other parts of Iraq by more than six percentage points, indicating relatively stronger economic engagement. However, this promising figure masks a dramatic gender imbalance that continues to characterize the region’s workforce.
Men participate in the labor market at a rate of 73.5%, while women’s participation stands at just 16.5% – revealing one of the lowest female workforce participation rates globally. The employment-to-population ratio tells a similar story, with 63.5% of working-age men employed compared to only 11.6% of women.
Perhaps most telling is that the small percentage of women who do enter the labor market face significantly higher barriers to employment. Women experience an unemployment rate of 29.6%, more than double the 13.6% rate for men. This creates what researchers describe as a “paradox” in Kurdistan’s labor market: while relatively few women are employed, those who do secure jobs tend to be highly educated and earn relatively high wages. In a rare economic reversal, employed women earned an average monthly salary of 655,250 Iraqi Dinars, exceeding the 596,450 Dinars earned by their male counterparts.
Youth face alarming employment challenges
The survey paints a particularly concerning picture for Kurdistan’s young people, who face multiple barriers to economic participation and stability. Youth unemployment stands at an alarming 37.2%, more than triple the 10.2% rate for adults, indicating that more than one-third of young job seekers cannot find work.
Even more worrying is the region’s NEET rate (youth not in education, employment, or training), a critical Sustainable Development Goal indicator. Nearly 30% of Kurdistan’s young people are neither gaining education nor work experience, with this figure rising to 40.5% for young women and 35.6% in rural areas.
The comprehensive measure of labor underutilization – which combines unemployment, underemployment, and potential labor force – reveals that nearly six in ten young people (59.9%) in the extended labor force are affected by some form of work deficit. These statistics highlight the urgent need for policies targeting youth employment opportunities and expanding educational and vocational training, particularly for young women and rural populations.
Economic transition: shifting from public to private sector
The survey documents significant structural changes in Kurdistan’s economy over the past decade. The public sector’s share of employment has declined substantially, from 50.5% in 2012 to 38.4% in 2021, while private sector employment has grown from 48.6% to 60.6% during the same period.
This transition is reflected in the changing sectoral composition of employment. While services remain dominant, employing over 70% of workers, their share has declined from 77.3% in 2012 to 72.3% in 2021. Meanwhile, industrial employment increased from 16.6% to 18.5%, and agricultural employment rose from 6.1% to 7.9%.
The survey also highlights high rates of informal employment, with nearly two-thirds (65.4%) of jobs classified as informal and 36.5% of employment situated entirely within the informal sector. This high informality rate presents significant challenges for worker protection while also offering opportunities for formalization policies.
Occupational segregation by gender remains pronounced across sectors. Nearly 39% of employed women work as professionals, compared to just 5.9% of men. Women are also more represented in clerical support positions. Meanwhile, men dominate in services and sales, as plant and machine operators, and in armed forces occupations.
Working hour patterns further highlight gender differences, with men typically working longer hours (46.8 weekly) than women (30.2 hours). Long work weeks exceeding 60 hours affected 29.3% of male workers but only 4.8% of women.
As Kurdistan’s economy continues evolving toward greater private sector employment, policies that support this transition while protecting workers’ rights and addressing specific barriers facing women and youth will be essential for inclusive economic growth. While the region shows advantages compared to the rest of Iraq in overall labor participation, the significant gender disparities and high youth unemployment rates indicate areas requiring targeted intervention to ensure economic growth translates into quality employment opportunities for all segments of the population.
By Jawad Qadir