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In 2023, the global youth unemployment rate dropped to 13%, a 15-year low, with 64.9mn unemployed young people — the lowest number since the start of the millennium.
More than four years after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, strong economic growth and rising labour demand have greatly improved job prospects for youth aged 15 to 24.
In fact, according to the International Labour Organization's Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024, the global youth unemployment rate dropped from 13.8% in 2019 to 13% in 2023, a 15-year low, with 64.9mn unemployed young people, and the lowest number since the start of the millennium.
At the same time, in 2023, the youth employment rate bounced back to 35%, and many young people who had left the workforce or lost jobs during the pandemic returned to work or started working for the first time.
However, the recovery gains for youth and their labour market prospects are already slowing, and has been uneven across regions.
While areas such as Central and Western Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, Northern, Southern, and Western Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa have seen multi-decade lows in youth unemployment, young people in the Arab States and North Africa continue to face critically high unemployment rates, the report highlighted.
On a global scale, the job search remains challenging for young jobseekers, particularly in middle-income countries.
Meanwhile according to gender, young men were found to have benefitted more from the recovery in the labour market than young women. Between 2009 to 2019, the youth unemployment rate of young men at the global level was higher than that of young women by an average of 0.7 percentage points (p.p).
The report also revealed other key findings such as the following:
The rise in NEET rates among youth raise concerns despite the declining unemployment
While youth unemployment rates have declined in many regions, broader challenges persist. In 2023, 6% of the global youth population was unemployed, but 20.4% were not in employment, education, or training (NEET), highlighting significant labour market exclusion.
Progress toward reducing the NEET rate has been "mixed and skewed in favour of advanced economies", the report noted, adding that one in three (33%) of the world’s young people is living in a country that is “off track” in its target to reduce the youth NEET rate.
What was highlighted as an area of added concern is that the countries that follow a regressive trend are low-income countries and those situated in subregions where rates were already among the world’s highest — namely, the Arab States, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.
Young people struggle to find secure work, with chances worsening in lower-income countries
Despite signs of recovery in youth employment and unemployment rates, many young people remain anxious about the economy and their job prospects. Indicators of this growing unease include the following:
- Worries about job loss
- Worries about job stability
- Lack of social mobility across generations
- Insufficient economic opportunities
- Limited financial independence
- General happiness levels among youth declining in some regions
Sectors that are hiring young people
Over the past two decades, the distribution of youth employment globally has shifted significantly, reflecting broader economic changes. Since 2008, the services sector has become the largest employer of young people globally, with wholesale & retail trade, accommodation & food services, and other business services driving two-thirds of this growth.
By 2021, agriculture's share of youth employment had dropped to 30.5%, while services' share had risen to 45.9%. The industrial sector's share remained relatively stable, increasing from 21.3% in 2001 to 23.6% in 2021. Within the industry sector, manufacturing's share of youth jobs declined, while construction, especially for young men, gained prominence.
Other findings from the report also include:
- Educational mismatches have increased as the supply of educated youth starts to outweigh the supply of jobs for the highly skilled in middle-income countries.
- With the number of conflicts across the globe doubling since 2010, the future livelihoods (and lives) of 57mn young people are at risk.
- Demographic trends take on greater weight as a driver of the future of work outcomes of young people.
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