More of Bahrain's adult population is in full-time work than almost any other country in the world, according to a new report.

The World at Work, published by US-based research and management consultancy firm Gallup, showed that 53 per cent of Bahrain's population aged 15 and older are working at least 30 hours per week for an employer the so-called 'Payroll to Population' or P2P rate.

Only the UAE and Iceland have a higher P2P rate, with 59 per cent and 54 per cent respectively, while the global average is just 26 per cent, reported the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

'The countries with the highest P2P rates tend to be some of the wealthiest or those with the highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, such as the UAE and the US,' said the report.

'Additionally, a number of countries on the list, such as Sweden, Bahrain, and Russia, rank towards the top because each has many people working directly for the government or government-owned entities.'

Kuwait was the only other GCC state to feature within Gallup's P2P top 10, six places from the top with 49 per cent of its adult population in full-time work.

However, Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE are exceptions to the rule, as across the wider region a lower P2P rate is more common.

'Along with sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa continues to perform poorly with respect to P2P '“ with the 19 per cent P2P rate at least partly attributable to the 52pc of the population not taking part in the workforce,' said the report.

'While some small Middle East countries such as Bahrain or the UAE have P2P rates higher than 50 per cent, the much larger countries of Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, and Yemen have lower P2P.

'Low workforce participation among women is a large factor in the region '“ three-quarters or more of women in Egypt, Morocco, and Yemen are out of the workforce, compared with 37 per cent in the US.'

The GDN reported on Monday that women make up 85 per cent of unemployed Bahrainis in the country, according to the latest figures from the Labour Ministry.

At the bottom of Gallup's P2P ratings list was Burkina Faso with five per cent, Haiti, Malawi and Niger with six per cent and Ethiopia and Sierra Leone with seven per cent.

Large informal economies and high levels of self-employment, coupled with a low per capita GDP, led to the small percentages of adults in full-time work, the report said.

Gallup's statistics were based on more than 136,000 interviews conducted across 136 countries in 2013, with working-age adults asked a battery of questions about their employment.

Adults who were self-employed, working part time, unemployed or were out of the workforce were not counted as payroll-employed in the study. - TradeArabia News Service