Youth unemployment rose globally last year, with some of the sharpest increases occurring in high-income economies, as artificial intelligence appears to be in full swing, the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO) noted yesterday, Tuesday.
The ILO’s annual report on youth employment estimates that the unemployment rate for young people aged 15–24 worldwide reached 12.4% in 2025, compared to 12.3% in 2024; in other words, 67 million young people were not employed.
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During the same period, the proportion of young people who were neither working, studying, nor in training (“not in employment, education, or training,” NEET for short) also rose slightly, reaching 20%, or more than 257 million.
According to the ILO, the youth unemployment rate is expected to remain stable in 2026 and 2027, at 12.3%.
Despite this apparent stability, however, the organization is concerned: “When the unemployment rate and the NEET rate rise simultaneously, we are sounding the alarm,” emphasized Sarah Elder, a senior official in the ILO’s Employment Policy Department, during the report’s press presentation in Geneva.
Between 2023 and 2025, the youth unemployment rate rose in eight of the world’s eleven regions.
“The slowdown in economic growth, the shortage of jobs being created, geopolitical tensions, and the acceleration of technological change are driving countries toward a new youth employment crisis,” warns the ILO.
Between 2023 and 2025, the largest increases in youth unemployment rates were recorded in North America, North Africa, and Northern, Southern, and Western Europe.
The report notes that technological advances, particularly the rise of so-called Artificial Intelligence (AI), are transforming young people’s job prospects.
The decline in many jobs requiring mid-level qualifications is making it more difficult for young people to access stable careers.
According to the report, jobs that have traditionally served as entry points into the labor market for young people—such as office clerks, administrative staff, general services, sales, etc., industrial workers, and those in technical professions—are on a downward trajectory.
“6.1% of the jobs currently held by young people between the ages of 15 and 29 are in occupations highly exposed to changes associated with AI,” Sukti Dasgupta, director of the ILO’s Employment, Skills, and Sustainable Enterprises Department, told reporters.
“If 10% of the jobs exposed to the digital transformation are lost, 5.6 million young people in the workforce, mainly in high-income countries, will face unemployment, a career change, or withdrawal from the labor market,” she emphasized.
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Source: APE-MPE
