Labour Force Survey 2025 shows modest improvement in Eswatini's labour market

Mbabane, Eswatini (ILO News) - Eswatini's labour market recorded modest but encouraging improvements between 2023 and 2025, according to the latest Labour Force Survey (LFS) results released to the public on 22 June 2026. The findings show a decline in unemployment alongside a slight increase in employment, signalling that more people are finding work.

Conducted by the Government of Eswatini with technical support from the International Labour Organization (ILO), the latest Labour Force Survey reveals modest gains in employment and declining unemployment, providing important evidence for labour market policymaking.

Eswatini conducts a Labour Force Survey (LFS) every 2 years. The latest survey dates to 2025 and the key results have been made available to the public, through a press release on 22 June 2026.

A comparison between the 2023 LFS results, and the 2025 LFS results shows an improvement in the labour market of Eswatini, as per table A below.

Table A: Key labour market Labour Force Survey results, Eswatini, 2023-2025

Source: Integrated Labour Force Survey 2025: Key results

The unemployment rate decreased over the 2-year period from 35.4% to 33.5%. The unemployed population meet 3 criteria:

• Not employed
• Looked for a job
• Available to start working

As such when interpreting a decrease in unemployment rate over a period of time, one must check where the population moved to. If the unemployment rate decreases but the employment-to-population ratio also decreases or remain stable, while the rate of persons outside labour force increases, it means that the unemployment rate only decreased because people stopped looking for jobs or indicated that they are not available to start working.

In Eswatini, the unemployment rate decreased from 2023 to 2025, the employment-to-population ratio increased slightly (from 32.8% to 33.5%), while the rate of persons outside the labour force did not change much (49.2% to 49.6%) over the same time period. It is true that the rate of persons outside the labour force increases slightly, but the fact that the employment-to-population ratio also increases indicates that while some people moved from unemployment to being outside labour force, the decrease in the unemployment rate was heavily influenced by people moving to employment rather than to being outside the labour force). In other words, the results show that the labour market situation improved in Eswatini, from 2023 to 2025.

The result also shows a slight decrease in the youth (15-24 years) unemployment rate, from 27.1% in 2023 to 26.8% in 2025.

Although the changes are small, the results are clear: there was a reversal in the labour market situation in Eswatini from 2023 to 2025. This reversal in labour market situation, albeit on a small scale, is one of the first in Eastern and Southern Africa.

ILO will continue to support Eswatini in monitoring and measuring the labour market, with the objective of keeping this labour market improvement trend.