By Gyan Pathak
There is rocky road ahead for Youth to decent work. Youth unemployment and NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) rates are on the rise. The progress seen in youth employment since the COVID-19 pandemic has come to an abrupt halt. This reversal of fortunes is taking place at a time of great uncertainty and fragility in the global economy. Growth remains subdued, uncertainty is elevated, inflationary pressures persist, and new risks associated with artificial intelligence (AI) are emerging. None of these bodes well for young people.
The latest ILO report “Global Employment Trends for Youth 2025: Back to the future” has highlighted the grim situation, and highlighted the recent deterioration in youth employment in terms of both the quantity and quality of jobs.
After reaching its lowest level in more than two decades in 2023, the global unemployment rate of young people aged 15 to 24 edged up to 12.4 per cent in 2025, equalling 67 million unemployed young people worldwide.
The global share of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) is also again on the rise, reaching 20 per cent in 2025 from 19.7 per cent in 2023. This translated into an increase of 9 million more young people in NEET status since 2023, bringing the total to 257 million in 2025. With many more young people implicated and with youth disengagement harder to redress, the increasing trend in the youth NEET rate is especially worrisome.
The youth unemployment rate rose between 2023 and 2025in 8 of the 11 subregions, as well as in high-income, lower-middle-income and low-income countries. The largest increases were in Northern Africa, Northern America and Northern, Southern and Western Europe.
In Central and Western Asia and Eastern Europe, and in upper-middle-income countries, the “good news” of declining youth unemployment rate was muted by the rise in youth in NEET status. And while Latin America and the Caribbean stood out as the only region to show a decline in both the youth unemployment rate and youth NEET rate, further analysis showed that results were driven in part by declining youth population sizes and that most countries in the subregion showed worsening trends in youth labour market engagement.
The NEET challenge has a female face in almost all subregions of the world. Still in 2025, more than two out of every three youth in NEET status were women and, at 27.4 per cent, the NEET rate of young women was more than double that of young men (at 13.1 per cent). Globally, the increase in the NEET rate since 2023 was slightly steeper for young women than young men (rising by 0.5 percentage points and 0.2 percentage points, respectively), thus expanding the gender gap even further.
It points to the bumpy road that lies ahead for today’s young people as they struggle to access decent work. There are still millions of young people – primarily young women – who are not accessing employment, education or training. Worse, the numbers are increasing.
The report sounds the alarm on the increased pressures from insufficient job creation that are pushing a growing number of young people into inactivity, prolonged job searches that can lead to discouragement, or informal employment. All too often, youth find themselves in jobs that do not match their qualifications or aspirations, or that fail to provide the labour and social protection needed to reduce income insecurity.
Especially troubling is the erosion of middle-skilled jobs, once a haven for young people seeking their first job after secondary school or technical training.
Alongside these unfavourable labour market outcomes for young people, comes the increasing noise around AI. While the evidence of its impact on jobs remains uncertain, we must not be complacent and underestimate the risks the report emphasized.
Anxieties among young people are high. Given the associated costs that come with insecurity in the labour market, including on the well-being of young people and their prospects for long-term productivity and income gains, this report stands as a call to action.
While youth employment stagnates or declines, employment of adults has continued to expand. The global youth unemployment rate rose from 12.3 per cent in 2023 to 12.4 per cent in 2025 as the rate for adults (aged 25 and over) decreased from 3.7 per cent to 3.6 per cent. The diverging trends have resulted in an increasing ratio of youth-to-adult unemployment rates (at 3.4 in 2025), signalling heightened difficulties in the capacity of the global economy to onboard young talent. The ratio of the youth-to-adult unemployment rates has increased in Eastern Asia, Northern Africa, Northern America, Northern, Southern and Western Europe and Southern Asia.
It sends a clear message about the urgency of doing more in the area of policies for employment (both wage employment and self-employment) and for labour and social protection to reassure young people that their concerns are being heard. (IPA Service)
