280 million jobs, 3 million businesses: cooperatives, a quietly global model
According to the World Cooperative Monitor 2025 of the International Cooperative Alliance, 280 million people — 10% of the world's active population — work in a cooperative. One billion people are members. This alternative economic model is in fact one of the most widespread on Earth.
The word “cooperative” often evokes something local, modest, perhaps marginal. The figures tell a different story.
According to the World Cooperative Monitor 2025, published by the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), there are more than 3 million cooperatives in the world, bringing together more than one billion members. These structures employ or provide work opportunities to 280 million people — 10% of the world’s active population. The 300 largest cooperatives and mutuals together generate $2,790 billion in annual turnover.
This model is not uniform. A worker cooperative shares decisions and profits with its employees. A consumer cooperative belongs to its customers. An agricultural cooperative allows farmers to pool their equipment and market access. In every case, governance remains in the hands of members — not outside shareholders.
Economic resilience data support the case. A study published by the ICA in April 2026 highlights that Mondragon — 81 interdependent cooperatives in the Basque Country — maintains a salary ratio of 1:9 between the lowest and highest wage, versus 1:129 for a FTSE 100 company. Shared governance and inter-cooperation form, according to the study, the group’s principal resilience factor.
Cooperation is not an ideology. It is an economic infrastructure that works, at scale, for more than a century.
Further reading: Same Apps, Different Rules: The Rise of Platform Cooperatives