How do we measure jobs?

Jobs are key to ending poverty and development practitioners, policymakers, academics, and business leaders agree that measuring jobs is important. While data on the number of jobs being created is important, it only tells a small part of the story.

Other components such as the quality of the job, who gets the job, and the types of firms that are hiring are also valuable factors to consider. The World Bank Jobs Group has been working through the Let’s Work Partnership to develop standardized methods for estimating job effects that can be used by project teams.  We spoke with Alvaro Gonzalez, Principal Economist of the Jobs Group, to understand how jobs are currently being measured, the difficulties in estimating job creation, and the way forward for this important agenda.

This post is part of a series of blogs covering key themes from the Jobs and Development Conference, hosted by the World Bank Jobs Group and the Network on Jobs and Development. Related blogs in this series can be found here and here. 

Follow the World Bank Jobs Group on Twitter @wbg_jobs.