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ILO ‘Global Employment Trends for Youth 2026’
The ILO report “Global Employment Trends for Youth 2026” highlights rising global youth unemployment and increasing NEET levels in 2025 amid stagnant economic growth and weak job creation. It reports quantified trends on youth unemployment, NEET, AI exposure of youth jobs, and youth-to-adult unemployment ratios, and lists recommendations on jobs, skills, transitions, social protection, and AI governance.
ILO ‘Global Employment Trends for Youth 2026’:
| Dimension | Key Details |
|---|---|
| Global youth unemployment (2025) | Global youth unemployment rises to 12.4% in 2025, equivalent to 67 million unemployed people aged 15 to 24 years. |
| NEET level (2025) | NEET (Not in Employment, Education, or Training) reaches 20% (257 million) in 2025, up by 9 million since 2023. |
| Gender composition of NEET youth | Women constitute over two-thirds of NEET youth. |
| AI exposure of youth jobs | 6.1% of youth jobs (15–29 years) are highly exposed to AI-driven task replacement. |
| Youth-to-adult unemployment ratio (2025) | Youth-to-adult unemployment ratio rises to 3.43 in 2025, making youth over 3 times more likely to be unemployed. |
| Informality and social protection | Nearly 9 in 10 young workers in low- and lower-middle-income countries are in informal jobs without adequate social protection or income security. |
| Job experience inflation | Digital recruitment and automation are pushing unrealistic experience requirements onto entry-level jobs. |
| Digital divide and AI impacts | Limited digital adoption reduces AI displacement but prevents developing economies from gaining AI-driven productivity benefits, widening global inequalities. |
| Drivers of high female NEET rates | High female NEET rates stem from unpaid care work, inadequate childcare, and discrimination, especially in Southern Asia, North Africa, and Arab States. |
| Recommendations | The report provides for measures: adopt gender-responsive, pro-employment policies and expand opportunities for young women in emerging and green sectors; scale quality apprenticeships and develop skill bundles combining technical and human-centric skills; modernize Public Employment Services (PES) and use targeted hiring and wage subsidies; extend portable social security to gig, platform, and informal workers and support first-time jobseekers; establish AI safeguards for recruitment to prevent algorithmic bias and ensure human oversight. |