Responsible use

Disclaimer & Responsible Use

PlainEmploy makes public ILO, World Bank, and OECD employment-protection data easier to read and compare. It is not legal, HR, or employment advice, and it does not tell you the law that applies to your situation. Use it as a starting point for your own research.

PlainEmploy is a free informational resource that makes public employment-protection data from the ILO, the World Bank, and the OECD easier to read and compare. It is not legal, HR, or employment advice, and it does not state the law that applies to any employer, worker, or contract. Use it as a starting point for your own research, not as the final word on what a country's employment law requires.

Informational only, not professional advice

Nothing on PlainEmploy constitutes legal, HR, employment, or tax advice, and using the site does not create any professional relationship. Decisions about hiring, terminating, structuring contracts, or asserting your rights as an employee can have serious legal and financial consequences. For guidance on a specific situation, consult a qualified employment lawyer or licensed adviser in the relevant jurisdiction, and rely on the official statutes and the responsible labor ministry or regulator for the binding rules.

What the scores are, and are not

The scores on PlainEmploy are published indices that measure the law as written, on three different scales, for cross-country comparison — not a statement of the rights or obligations in any individual case. The ILO EPLex composite (0–1) codes whether statutes contain specific provisions; the OECD EPL index (0–6) scores the strictness of those provisions; the World Bank B-READY labor score (0–100) measures the operational efficiency of regulation from an employer survey. None of them captures how a law is enforced in practice, recent amendments, collective bargaining agreements, sector-specific rules, or the facts of a particular dispute. A country's index says nothing definitive about any single employee or employer within it.

Data freshness and accuracy

Each source updates on its own cycle — EPLex (2020 edition), B-READY (annual, 2025 current), and OECD EPL (through 2019, with history from 1990) — so figures can lag recent legislative change; each page shows the reference year for its metric. We work to keep the data accurate and aligned with the source releases, but we cannot guarantee it is complete, current, or free of upstream limitations. If you spot a figure that looks wrong, please report it through our corrections process.

Before you act on it

Treat PlainEmploy as one input among several. Before you act on what you read here, we recommend you also:

  • Check the current statute and the responsible labor ministry or regulator in the relevant country, which is authoritative for the binding rules.
  • Confirm whether recent amendments, collective agreements, or sector-specific rules change the position since the index vintage shown.
  • Remember the three scales are not interchangeable — a high EPLex score and a high B-READY score mean different things; compare like with like.
  • For any real decision about hiring, dismissal, or your own rights, get advice from a qualified employment professional in that jurisdiction.

No affiliation

PlainEmploy is an independent publisher. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by the International Labour Organization, the World Bank, the OECD, or any government agency. Outbound links to official sources are provided for verification and do not imply any partnership.

Questions

Questions about how to use this data, or about a specific figure, are welcome at hello@plainemploy.com. See also our editorial & corrections policy and methodology.