Workers of the World, Divided!

Estonian parents get two years of paid leave, U.S. prisoners make $.12 an hour, and other statistics to consider this Labor Day.

Migrant workers harvest strawberries at a farm March 13, 2013 near Oxnard, California. A mess with no easy fix: American crops going unpicked -- it's backbreaking work Americans won't touch -- and poor migrants in need of work are shying away for fear of being abused.  AFP PHOTO/JOE KLAMAR        (Photo credit should read JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images)
Migrant workers harvest strawberries at a farm March 13, 2013 near Oxnard, California. A mess with no easy fix: American crops going unpicked -- it's backbreaking work Americans won't touch -- and poor migrants in need of work are shying away for fear of being abused. AFP PHOTO/JOE KLAMAR (Photo credit should read JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images)
Migrant workers harvest strawberries at a farm March 13, 2013 near Oxnard, California. A mess with no easy fix: American crops going unpicked -- it's backbreaking work Americans won't touch -- and poor migrants in need of work are shying away for fear of being abused. AFP PHOTO/JOE KLAMAR (Photo credit should read JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images)

Labor Day is not generally considered a reflective holiday. Despite the best efforts of trade unions to remind Americans about the origins of their three-day weekend, Labor Day activities tend to be more about the end of summer -- back-to-school shopping, late season grilling -- than about the end of worker exploitation.

Labor Day is not generally considered a reflective holiday. Despite the best efforts of trade unions to remind Americans about the origins of their three-day weekend, Labor Day activities tend to be more about the end of summer — back-to-school shopping, late season grilling — than about the end of worker exploitation.

Yet laborers — who often work under terrible conditions, without the benefit of basic protections — remain as real a feature in our world as 1887, when Oregon became the first U.S. state to establish Labor Day. The rest of the world may not celebrate the holiday (other countries often observe International Workers’ Day) but at a time when union membership is shrinking in the United States, the supply chain has been globalized, and workers from China to Mexico still struggle to gain basic protections, it’s a chance to look at the state of labor around the world, by the numbers.

Child labor:

Labor_Graphicchildren

Labor_Graphicchildren

Minimum wage:

Labor_Graphic2ajosef

Labor_Graphic2ajosef

Women in the workforce:

Labor_Graphicwomen

Labor_Graphicwomen

JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images

Benjamin Soloway was an editor at Foreign Policy from 2015-2020.
Twitter: @bsoloway

Ed Johnson was an art director at Foreign Policy from 2013-2016. Twitter: @edxjohnson

More from Foreign Policy

Children are hooked up to IV drips on the stairs at a children's hospital in Beijing.
Children are hooked up to IV drips on the stairs at a children's hospital in Beijing.

Chinese Hospitals Are Housing Another Deadly Outbreak

Authorities are covering up the spread of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia.

Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980.
Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980.

Henry Kissinger, Colossus on the World Stage

The late statesman was a master of realpolitik—whom some regarded as a war criminal.

A Ukrainian soldier in helmet and fatigues holds a cell phone and looks up at the night sky as an explosion lights up the horizon behind him.
A Ukrainian soldier in helmet and fatigues holds a cell phone and looks up at the night sky as an explosion lights up the horizon behind him.

The West’s False Choice in Ukraine

The crossroads is not between war and compromise, but between victory and defeat.

Illustrated portraits of Reps. MIke Gallagher, right, and Raja Krishnamoorthi
Illustrated portraits of Reps. MIke Gallagher, right, and Raja Krishnamoorthi

The Masterminds

Washington wants to get tough on China, and the leaders of the House China Committee are in the driver’s seat.