Cambodia’s 2025 labour survey shows 9.1 million people in work

The 3.6% unemployment rate has a narrower denominator than many readers assume

Cambodia had about 13.1 million people aged 15 and over in 2025. Around 9.4 million were in the labour force, including about 9.1 million employed people and roughly 342,000 people classified as unemployed. That produces the reported unemployment rate of 3.6%.

A further 3.7 million people were outside the labour force. They are not counted as unemployed under the survey definition, so 3.6% should not be interpreted as the share of all working-age adults who do not have a job. It also does not, by itself, show that employers will find suitable staff quickly or that vacancies are easy to fill.

Labour-force participation increased from 69.3% in 2019 to 71.6% in 2025. For an individual job search, however, occupation, location, language requirements, employer demand and legal eligibility are more relevant than the national headline rate.

**Services account for the largest share of employment**

The survey places 43.0% of employed people in services, 29.4% in industry and 27.6% in agriculture. This matters for businesses because it shows where much of the country’s workforce is already concentrated and how far Cambodia’s employment base has moved beyond agriculture alone.

The headline sector split still leaves major questions unanswered for a specific employer. It does not provide a ready-made estimate of recruitment costs, staff availability at a particular skill level or wages for an individual role. Those decisions require narrower labour-market data and direct checks in the relevant city and occupation.

For practical context, see Cambodia economy and finance. This development also connects with 18,703 people near Cambodia’s border were unable to return home.

Informal work is widespread, but published figures are not fully aligned

The accessible National Institute of Statistics preliminary report gives an informal-employment rate of 76.7%. The September 2 release reported by Agence Kampuchea Presse gives 75.1%. Both point to the same broad feature of Cambodia’s labour market: roughly three quarters of employment is informal, but the exact percentage should be tied to the specific report version being used.

The distinction becomes relevant when judging job quality. A high employment count does not tell a worker whether a role comes with a written contract, paid leave, social-security contributions or other protections. For a company planning formal recruitment, the overall supply of employed people is therefore not the same thing as the pool of candidates already working under formal employment arrangements.

The survey covered 9,912 households nationwide, with fieldwork carried out in late October and November 2025. It is designed to describe the national labour market, not to predict conditions for one city, profession or foreign-worker category.