Labor market in Chad

Agriculture and livestock provide more than three quarters of jobs and remain central to rural livelihoods. Rural work often combines subsistence production, family labor and self-employment. Urban labor markets offer more services, wage work and formal opportunities, although industrial and oil activity creates relatively few jobs compared with its economic importance. Oil represented about 15% of GDP, 41% of government revenue and 76% of exports in the cited research, while agriculture represented about 40% of GDP and remains exposed to drought, floods, insecurity and displacement. The latest nationally comparable household and labor-market survey is ECOSIT4 from 2018. It recorded about 4.06 million employed people aged 15 and over, a participation rate of about 59.4% among people aged 15 to 64, and an ILO unemployment rate of about 2%. The rate was about 5% in urban areas and 1% in rural areas, but these figures do not show irregular work, insufficient hours or very low earnings. Average working time was about 33 hours per week. Women participated less than men, with rates of about 50% and 73% respectively, and were more often in unpaid, informal or part-time work. The reported income gap was about 43.3%. Private work accounted for about 95.2% of jobs in the 2018 data, while public-sector employment represented less than 5%; administration accounted for about 117,578 jobs, or 2.9%. Formal wage employment represented about 7.9%, so a registered company or government position is not the usual entry path for most workers. Family contacts, neighbors, craft masters and market relationships commonly connect people to informal work. ONAPE, the Office National pour la Promotion de l’Emploi, is the public tripartite employment service. It provides job matching, career advice, skills-needs information, reconversion, mobility support, youth-insertion services and assistance with self-employment or microenterprises. Its online service includes candidate and employer areas and job offers. Administrative records list services in N’Djamena, Moundou, Sarh, Bongor and Doba, while private placement offices also operate. Publicly verified information on registration times, placement rates and fees is limited. More than half of people aged 15 to 64 had no formal schooling in the cited research. Rural secondary-school attendance was about 9%, youth illiteracy was about 70%, and skills often do not match available jobs. Education and university pathways, Technical and Vocational Training Centers, apprenticeships with craft businesses, non-formal basic education, workplace learning and family-business experience all provide different ways to build skills. Some World Bank-supported projects used a model with 25% institutional training and 75% practical training, but this is not a national standard. Individual programs cited in the research lasted from about 90 days to six months, depending on the program. Pay is generally low and unstable, with higher earnings usually found in N’Djamena, other urban areas, services and industry than in agriculture. The last independently verified minimum-wage decree in the research dates from 2011: the SMIG was 355 FCFA per hour, equivalent to 59,995 FCFA for 169 hours per month, and the SMAG was 302.8 FCFA per hour, equivalent to 60,560 FCFA for 200 hours per month. A current adjustment was not independently confirmed, so these figures should not be treated as the current rate without checking the competent authority. The Labour Code, Law 038/PR/96, addresses contracts, pay, working time, leave, safety, unions and dispute procedures. Its rules do not automatically cover established civil servants, the army, police or judiciary, and informal workers often remain outside effective labor protection and social insurance. CNPS provides formal social insurance, while the Labour Inspectorate and Labour Court support legal enforcement. FONAP supports vocational training. INSEED produces official statistics, including ECOSIT4. Employer and worker organizations include CNPT, UST, CLITT and CIST. The Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Dialogue oversees the national framework. In practice, access still varies sharply by location, gender, education, documentation, infrastructure and household resources. Chad also hosts refugees from Sudan, the Central African Republic, Nigeria and Cameroon. The 2020 Asylum Law recognizes rights including freedom of movement, work, land and services. A refugee identification document can improve access to employment, banking and telecommunications, but legal access does not guarantee practical access where markets, financing and documents are limited. In mid-2025, refugees represented about one third of the population in eastern Chad according to the cited research. The labor market is being shaped by demographic growth, with about 200,000 young people expected to enter each year in World Bank planning, as well as oil-price volatility, climate shocks, insecurity and displacement. Chad Connection 2030, the PND 2025–2030, targets infrastructure, basic services including education and employment, economic and industrial development, and a better business climate. Its target of about 8% annual real growth and about USD 30 billion in investment is a plan ambition, not a measured current result. Potential employment areas include agricultural processing, livestock, cotton, gum arabic, sesame, telecommunications, transport and green or digital entrepreneurship, but finance, infrastructure, human-capital, climate and security risks remain substantial.