Youth Unemployment Rises Amid AI Technology Expansion
Youth unemployment worldwide rose last year, the International Labour Organization (ILO) reported this week. The sharpest increases occurred in a number of high-income countries, as artificial intelligence begins to reshape the labour market.
The short-lived recovery that had emerged in the youth labour market after the Covid-19 pandemic has now stalled, the UN labour agency said.
The body, which is part of the United Nations, said the global youth unemployment rate rose from 12.3 per cent in 2024 to 12.4 per cent last year. That figure equates to 67 million unemployed people aged 15 to 24.
Meanwhile, the proportion of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) edged up to 20 per cent. The condition affects more than 257 million people, according to the ILO’s Global Employment Trends for Youth 2026 report.
First published in 2004, the report provides an annual overview of youth labour market indicators at global and regional levels.
The report found that some of the largest increases in youth unemployment occurred in high-income countries. The situation is “dashing the aspirations of millions of young people just starting their working lives”.
“Slowing global economic growth, shrinking job creation, geopolitical tensions, and rapid technological change are combining to make the transition from school to decent work increasingly difficult for many young people,” the report said.
The Geneva-based ILO projects the youth unemployment rate will hold at 12.3 per cent in 2026 and 2027.
Nevertheless, in years when youth unemployment and NEET rates “rise simultaneously, we raise a red flag”, said Sara Elder, head of the ILO’s employment analysis and economic policy unit, at a press conference.
The report noted that anxiety among young people is at a high level. However, the impact of artificial intelligence on the labour market remains largely unknown.
Young people are “increasingly expressing fears that their jobs will be replaced by technology and that their opportunities to obtain work and income stability will be hampered by unprecedented technological disruption, as well as other changes in the future world of work”.
Sukti Dasgupta, Director of the ILO’s Department of Employment, Skills and Sustainable Enterprises, told reporters that it is too early to draw a direct causal link between the development of AI and rising youth unemployment.
However, “the coincidence is quite striking”, she said, while calling for further research in the coming months.
Dasgupta said the world is now in a period of “great global economic uncertainty and fragility”, when “new risks related to AI are beginning to emerge. None of this bodes well for young people.”
The report found that jobs that have traditionally served as entry points for young people into the labour market—including clerical and administrative work, sales positions, and manufacturing jobs—are shrinking.
“A generation that cannot find decent work will not be able to build its future with confidence,” said ILO Director-General Gilbert Houngbo.
“When young people are shut out of quality jobs, countries lose talent, productivity, and social cohesion. Creating decent jobs for young people is not merely a social imperative, but one of the smartest investments a country can make.”
At the subregional level, the largest increases in youth unemployment occurred in North Africa, North America, and Northern, Southern and Western Europe.
In Central and Western Asia and Eastern Europe, declines in youth unemployment rates were offset by increases in the number of young people falling into the NEET category.
While both indicators declined in Latin America and the Caribbean, that outcome was driven in part by the shrinking youth population.
Arab States and North Africa “consistently remain the subregions with the highest youth unemployment rates in the world”, the report said. The figures stand at 26.2 per cent and 22.6 per cent respectively.
When both indicators rise from already high levels, “it signals deepening structural barriers that have taken root and are pushing young talent—especially young women—to the margins of productive society.”