Top Countries by OECD Employment Protection
PlainEmploy ranks OECD member and partner countries by the OECD Employment Protection Indicator for regular individual contracts.
Research period:
Research question
Among countries covered by the OECD Employment Protection Legislation indicators, which rank highest on protection for individual dismissal of regular indefinite-contract employees, and how do their rank values compare to their regional neighbors?
Methodology
This ranking is generated live from PlainEmploy's own database of OECD Employment Protection Legislation (EPL) indicator scores, sorted by protection strength. No figure here is hardcoded, every number reflects the current state of PlainEmploy's database and updates when the OECD publishes a new release.
Countries with no scored value are excluded from this ranking rather than shown with a placeholder value. See the methodology page for the full source registry and update history.
Top 10 Countries by OECD Employment Protection Indicator (Regular Contracts)
Live data, refreshed as the OECD publishes new releases
The ranked top 10
These 10 rows update automatically as PlainEmploy's underlying data refreshes.
| # | Country | Region | OECD score | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Indonesia | Asia-Pacific | 4.075 | 2012 |
| 2 | Venezuela | Americas | 3.5 | 2014 |
| 3 | Kazakhstan | Asia-Pacific | 3.321 | 2015 |
| 4 | India | Asia-Pacific | 3.286 | 2012 |
| 5 | China | Asia-Pacific | 3.258 | 2012 |
| 6 | Russia | Europe | 3.063 | 2012 |
| 7 | Czech Republic | Europe | 3.017 | 2019 |
| 8 | Thailand | Asia-Pacific | 2.921 | 2014 |
| 9 | Israel | Middle East & Africa | 2.907 | 2019 |
| 10 | Portugal | Europe | 2.854 | 2019 |
Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD Employment Protection Indicators Updated automatically when the source publishes a new vintage.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked country in this dataset is Indonesia, with a value of 4.075 on the OECD score. The full top-10 set is shown in the table above. No number here is hardcoded; when the source agency publishes a revision, the ranking updates on the next page load.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (4.075) and the 10th-ranked record (2.854) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full oecd_scores population, the aggregate query returns the following summary statistics. These anchors situate the top-10 ranking against the underlying population: how many records exist in total, what the sum of the ranking column is across all qualifying rows, and what the mean per-record value looks like. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied by the aggregate query (records with null or zero values on the ranking column are excluded). The aggregate row is computed by the same database engine that renders the ranking above, against the same snapshot.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking originate from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, specifically the OECD Employment Protection Indicators. PlainEmploy ingests the vintage published by the agency and keeps this ranking current automatically, there is no static export carrying stale numbers. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and how the data is processed.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
The OECD Employment Protection Indicator scales statutory protections on a 0-6 scale where higher means stronger protection. The indicator focuses on what is in the statute book and standard case law, not actual labor-market outcomes or enforcement variation. The same statutory protection delivered differently across two countries with different judicial systems produces materially different real-world effects. The OECD indicator covers around 30-40 economies, far fewer than the ILO EPLex, and prioritizes OECD members plus selected accession and partner economies, so coverage is skewed toward high-income economies. Sub-pillar scoring (procedural requirements, notice periods, severance pay, prohibited grounds, redress availability) is aggregated using OECD-published weights that have been revised over time; cross-vintage comparison requires checking the methodology vintage. The overall pillar combines individual-regular, individual-temporary, and collective dismissal protections, a country can score high on overall while ranking lower on any one sub-pillar.
Secondary cut from the same source
OECD pillar coverage, collective dismissal, regular individual, temporary, and overall
Sources
- OECD Employment Protection Legislation Indicators - https://www.oecd.org/employment/emp/oecdindicatorsofemploymentprotection.htm
- OECD Employment Outlook - https://www.oecd.org/employment-outlook/