Africa is facing a deepening youth employment crisis, as rapid demographic growth collides with weak job creation and a shortage of decent work, leaving millions of young people either unemployed or trapped in informal and insecure jobs, the International Labour Organization (ILO), has warned.
The warning is contained in ILO’s Global Employment Trends for Youth 2026: Back to the Future report, which said the global youth unemployment rate rose to 12.4 per cent in 2025, representing 67 million unemployed young people aged 15 to 24.
The report also found that the share of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) increased slightly to 20 per cent, affecting more than 257 million young people worldwide.
According to the ILO, sub-Saharan Africa faces particularly strong demographic pressures alongside an insufficient supply of decent jobs, increasing the risk that more young people will fall into NEET status.
The report noted that the challenge in developing economies was not simply unemployment, but the inability of labour markets to provide enough stable and decent jobs to absorb growing young populations.
It said low unemployment rates in many developing economies could conceal widespread labour market insecurity because young people often cannot afford to remain unemployed and are therefore pushed into informal or unstable employment.
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“Nearly nine in 10 young workers aged 15 to 29 in low- and lower-middle-income countries are employed informally,” the ILO said, noting that such employment limits young workers’ access to stable incomes and social protection.
Globally, youth unemployment increased in eight of the world’s 11 subregions between 2023 and 2025, with slowing economic growth, weak job creation, geopolitical tensions and rapid technological change creating additional barriers for young people entering the labour market.
ILO Director-General, Gilbert F. Houngbo, said the consequences of excluding young people from decent employment extended beyond individual livelihoods to national productivity and social stability.
“A generation that cannot find decent work cannot build its future with confidence,” Houngbo said.
He added: “When young people are locked out of quality employment, countries lose talent, productivity and social cohesion.”
According to him, creating decent jobs for young people was not only a social responsibility but also “one of the smartest investments a country can make.”
The report warned that technological change, including artificial intelligence (AI), was reshaping the employment prospects of young workers.
It estimated that 6.1 per cent of jobs held by young people aged 15 to 29 were in occupations highly exposed to AI-related changes. Many of the affected occupations overlap with middle-skilled jobs that have declined among young workers since 2023, including clerical and administrative roles.
However, the ILO noted that demand was growing in some knowledge-based technical occupations, particularly in science, health and engineering, highlighting the need to equip young people with skills that match changing labour market requirements.
The Director of the ILO’s Employment, Skills and Sustainable Enterprises Department, Sukti Dasgupta, said governments should not underestimate the risks associated with technological change.
“While the direct impact on jobs is still unclear, we must not be complacent and underestimate the risks,” Dasgupta said.
She called for increased investment in skills, lifelong learning and social protection to enable young people to adapt to changes in the world of work.
“Technological progress, including AI, must work for young people, not against them,” she added.
The ILO report called for renewed policy action to create pathways from education and training into decent work, particularly for young women and young people in vulnerable situations.
It recommended greater investment in quality education, lifelong learning and apprenticeships; stronger employment services and labour market institutions; expanded social protection and rights at work; and macroeconomic and sectoral policies capable of generating more decent employment.
The ILO also urged governments to adopt a human-centred approach to AI governance to ensure that technological innovation creates employment opportunities rather than deepening existing inequalities.
The report stressed that the challenge facing countries was not merely to create more jobs for young people, but to ensure that those jobs offered security, dignity and meaningful opportunities for young people to make successful transitions into adulthood.
