Labor market in Tanzania

Labor market access in Tanzania is shaped by region, education, gender, age, disability, transport, digital access and the difference between formal and informal work. The 2025 Integrated Labour Force Survey recorded a labor-force participation rate of 75.9% and an employment-to-population ratio of 71.4%. Participation was 82.5% for men and 69.7% for women, while unemployment was 9.3% among people aged 15 to 24. People with disabilities had a participation rate of 55.3%, compared with 77.6% among people without disabilities. Informal work is the dominant form of employment. Informal employment reached 95.7% in 2025, and informal-sector employment accounted for 28.2%. Many informal workers operate without formal contracts, effective labor-law coverage or social protection. Dependent contractors represented 51.5% of workers, contributing family workers 20.4%, paid employees 13.2% and owner-operators 0.2%. These figures show why employment numbers alone do not describe income security or working conditions. Agriculture, forestry and fishing remain the largest employment area. Wholesale and retail trade, including vehicle repair, represented 15.6% of employment; manufacturing 5.5%; accommodation and food services 4.5%; transport and storage 4.4%; construction 3.1%; mining and quarrying 1.2%; education 1.9%; and finance and insurance 0.5%. Dar es Salaam and other urban areas have stronger concentrations of trade, logistics, construction, manufacturing and services. Mining and energy are strategically significant but employ a smaller share of the total workforce. Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar have distinct administrative and statistical systems, even though the 2025 survey provides harmonized United Republic of Tanzania figures. Formal employment is concentrated unevenly: the Employment Services System recorded 34.5% of formal employees in Dar es Salaam, followed by Morogoro at 7.4%, Arusha at 5.1% and Mbeya at 4.9%. The 2025 survey reported unemployment of 9.3% in Dar es Salaam, 6.9% in other urban areas and 5.0% in rural areas. A city may offer more vacancies and training, while an agriculture-heavy region may offer different work and income patterns. Training routes include vocational education through VETA, competence-based programs, apprenticeships, employer training and informal skills development. NACTVET generally covers certificate and diploma routes at NTA levels 4 to 6. Many programs generally require four non-religious CSEE passes, although programme-specific exceptions apply. Recognition of Prior Learning, or RPL, provides a formal way to assess existing skills in relevant technical and vocational pathways. Certification can improve skill signaling but does not guarantee a job; access also depends on selection, institutional capacity, fees, travel, equipment and digital access. Average pay varies sharply by sector, location and qualification. In 2025, average monthly income from paid employment was TZS 478,627, compared with TZS 613,860 in Dar es Salaam, TZS 518,919 in other urban areas and TZS 371,040 in rural areas. The average was TZS 888,757 for workers with vocational qualifications, TZS 828,750 for non-university tertiary qualifications and TZS 1,379,597 for university qualifications. The Employment Services System recorded average cash earnings of TZS 689,730 in formal employment for 2024/25, with TZS 1,335,249 in the public sector and TZS 623,437 in the private sector. These sources use different populations and definitions and should not be compared as identical wage measures. The Labour Institutions (Minimum Wage for Private Sector) Order 2025 took effect on 1 January 2026. It sets sector- and area-specific minimum wages rather than one universal take-home amount. Examples include TZS 175,000 per month in crop and animal agriculture, TZS 300,000 in fishing and aquaculture, TZS 297,000 in domestic energy companies and TZS 765,900 in international energy companies. The exact category must be checked against the current order, contract and any applicable collective agreement. Public matching services are distributed among the Prime Minister’s Office responsible for labour, employment and relations, the Tanzania Employment Services Agency, known as TaESA, and the National Labour Market Information System, or NLMIS. The jobs.kazi.go.tz platform allows jobseekers and employers to register, post vacancies and search for candidates. Private recruitment agencies, personal networks, mobile channels and social media also influence access, especially where vacancies are not formally advertised. In 2024/25, professionals accounted for 50.3% of recorded vacancies and technicians and associate professionals 27.7%; 82.4% of vacancies did not require prior experience. Education represented 44.9% of vacancies. Most recorded vacancies were replacements rather than newly created posts. Labor-market conditions are changing. From the previous comparison period, labor-force participation rose from 73.2% to 75.9%, employment-to-population rose from 68.7% to 71.4%, and unemployment fell from 6.2% to 5.9%. Average weekly work increased from 39 to 46 hours, while informality continued to rise. Youth entry, urbanization, infrastructure, industrialization, tourism, digitalization and climate-related agricultural shocks affect demand and supply. Projections describe possible future needs and do not guarantee that the projected jobs will appear. Internal movement between rural and urban areas and between regions is part of labor-market access. A non-citizen generally needs a valid work permit or exemption under the Non-Citizens (Employment Regulation) Act and usually also a residence permit for stays longer than 90 days. Class B work permits target specific employment or technical skills that are not readily available locally, and employers have related succession or local-training duties. Formal workers and covered self-employed groups may fall within NSSF social-security arrangements; the joint contribution is 20% of gross wages, with the employee share capped at 10%. Employment contracts, working conditions and disputes are governed by the applicable Mainland or Zanzibar framework and belong to the employment-law side of the labor market rather than to labor-market statistics alone.