The fourth edition of the Labour Rights Index, launched on the eve of the World Day for Decent Work (October 7), shows that between January 2024 and January 2026, far more countries strengthened their labour laws than weakened them. The global debate on jobs is shifting from how many jobs are created to what kind and quality.
A frequent argument is that most countries already have enough labour laws and that the real problem is implementation. Implementation matters, but a right that does not exist in law cannot be implemented. If the law provides no maternity protection or no right to organise, no amount of labour inspection can create these rights.
The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recognises that legislation is an indispensable step for rights at work. Sustainable Development Goal indicators 5.1.1 (equality) and 8.8.2 (trade union rights) already assess national legislation.
Produced by the WageIndicator Foundation and the Centre for Labour Research, the 2026 Labour Rights Index covers 168 countries and scores 48 components under 10 indicators. The benchmarks come from International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions and UN instruments the world has already agreed upon.
The challenge is to protect workers rather than jobs, while ensuring a strong floor of labour rights
The Index is deliberately de jure. The 168 countries account for more than 95 per cent of the world’s population, nearly half of whom live in countries whose legislation provides “reasonable access to decent work” (countries scoring 70.5-80 out of 100). Measuring the law separates legal deficits from implementation deficits.
The long-term evidence does not support the feared race to the bottom. A 2025 ILO working paper, based on the Centre of Business Rights Labour Regulation Index and covering 117 countries between 1970 and 2022, finds that worker protection has increased steadily and that protective reforms were positively linked to a higher labour share of income.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s 2026 review of employment protection finds that between 2019 and 2025 many countries strengthened regulation of temporary contracts, while virtually none significantly reduced protection on open-ended contracts.
A similar finding appears in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2026. The average global gender gap has narrowed to its best recorded level, with around 70 per cent of the gap now closed. All 97 economies tracked continuously since 2006 have made progress.
The Labour Rights Index tells a similar story: 134 legal changes in 70 countries between 1 January 2024 and 1 January 2026. Setting aside minimum wage revisions, 38 reforms raised a component score, and another 60 strengthened the law without changing the score. Nine legal changes lowered a score and four weakened protection without affecting it. That is more than seven improvements for every setback.
The reforms span regions and income groups, from Lesotho and Egypt to the Kyrgyz Republic and Colombia. However, new working-time rules lowered scores in Egypt, India (Uttar Pradesh) and Lesotho.
Freedom of association and collective bargaining remains the weakest area globally, and around 36pc of the population covered still lives in countries where the law offers limited access to decent work or worse.
South Asia remains the lowest-scoring region (with an average score of 58, against 92 for Europe). The region is moving, however. India’s four Labour Codes came into force on 21 November 2025, giving India the region’s highest score (71.5). Bangladesh’s Labour (Amendment) Act, 2026 and Pakistan’s Punjab Labour Code 2026 came after the 1 January 2026 reference date.
Pakistan shows why legislation matters. It has long relied on more than 40 fragmented labour laws, a structure largely reproduced at the provincial level after the 18th Amendment. The Punjab Labour Code 2026, enacted on 10 February, repeals 26 labour laws and extends protection to agricultural, domestic, home-based and platform workers, and strengthens maternity, childcare and collective rights.
Pakistan’s official 2026 score of 52.5 does not reflect this Code’s provisions. Assessed against the new Code, Pakistan’s score rises to 86, moving Pakistan from “basic access” to “approaching access to decent work.” This does not make workers better off overnight; implementation is the real test. But now there are rights that can be inspected, litigated, and bargained over.
Artificial intelligence is reshaping occupations, platform work is blurring the line between employment and self-employment, and climate change is exposing workers to heat stress. The answer is not to preserve every job. As the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences highlighted, innovation-driven growth displaces some jobs; the challenge is to protect workers rather than jobs, while ensuring a strong floor of labour rights.
Good legislation cannot guarantee decent work. But decent work cannot be built without good legislation. The evidence supports cautious optimism. Exploitation, informality and attacks on trade union rights have not disappeared. But the legislative reforms tell the story of a march to the top. The task now, in Pakistan as elsewhere, is to turn rights on paper into rights at work.
The writer is the founder of the Centre for Labour Research, Pakistan, and Global Lead – Labour Law at the WageIndicator Foundation. Email: ia72@cornell.edu
Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, October 12th, 2026
