GlobalWorkplaceReport_2013

Payroll to Population:
A New Measure of
Economic Energy
Traditional employment metrics are imperfect indicators of a country’s true
economic situation. As it is generally defined, a country’s unemployment rate
— the measure tracked most often worldwide — is not affected by changes in
the workforce participation rate. When jobs are scarce, people may drop out
of the workforce or become “self-employed” in menial labor or subsistencelevel
work such as small-scale farming. Such changes can actually lead
to an improvement in unemployment rates, even though fewer people are
contributing significantly to a country’s economic output.
In 2012, Gallup developed a new employment indicator intended to gauge the prevalence
of “good jobs” in a country’s economy. This metric, called Payroll to Population (P2P),
estimates the percentage of the entire 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. Unlike the traditional unemployment rate, P2P decreases when fewer
people are working and increases when more people find full-time work.
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