Health and social services

Health and social services are fundamental to society and the economy, with health care recognized as a basic human right essential for safeguarding the health and safety of populations. There is no health or social care without health and social service workers. Securing employment and decent working conditions for health and social services workers are essential strategies to ensure equal access to quality health and care services and to address global workforce shortages.

The UN High-level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth (HEEG) recognized the health sector’s economic importance and emphasized urgent investments in a strong health and care workforce, which also serve as an effective strategy for job creation.

The ILO promotes decent working conditions and labour relations in the health and social services, through rights at work, employment opportunities, social health protection, sectoral labour standards and social dialogue, including through joint initiatives such as the ILO-OECD-WHO Working for Health Programme.

Key resources

Resources:

COVID-19:

Highlights

Caring for those who care

ILO-OECD-WHO Programme (W4H)

This programme provides technical support to governments, social partners and key stakeholders to expand and transform the global health and social workforce for achieving universal health coverage.

Data and statistics

The bar charts show global and regional point estimates at the sectoral level, based on data from the ILO Harmonized Microdata collection. These estimates cannot be directly compared across different periods and may be updated as new information becomes available. The estimates provided and published by the ILO may differ from those produced and released at the national level.

For more detailed labour market indicators and country-level data, visit the Sectoral Employment Statistics page of the ILOSTAT database.