One in five young people aged 15 to 24, about 257 million, were not in employment, education or training in 2025, young women at more than twice the rate of young men, and the ILO expects the share to keep rising slightly to 2027.
Updated October 14, 2026. Written from the sources listed below, not independently peer-reviewed.
Out of every 100 young women aged 15 to 24 worldwide, how many are not in employment, education or training?
257 million
Young people not in employment, education or training
20.0% of all people aged 15 to 24, up from 19.7% in 2023 and about 9 million more people. ILO modelled estimate.
Data year 2025. Source: International Labour Organization, 2026
12.4%
Youth unemployment rate
About 67 million unemployed people aged 15 to 24, up from 12.3% in 2023, the lowest level in more than two decades. ILO modelled estimate.
Data year 2025. Source: International Labour Organization, 2026
27.4%
NEET rate of young women
More than double the 13.1% of young men. Young women make up more than two-thirds of all young people in NEET status. ILO modelled estimate.
Data year 2025. Source: International Labour Organization, 2026
* Projection, not a measurement. ILO modelled estimates as reported in the 2026 youth report; 2026 and 2027 are projections. Estimates are revised with each edition, so values for the same years in earlier ILO and UN reports differ and should not be combined. In numbers, the ILO projects 264.5 million young people in NEET status in 2027, up from 257.1 million in 2025.
SDG target 8.6 aimed to substantially reduce the share of young people not in employment, education or training by 2020. That did not happen: the UN's 2021 progress report found the share in 2019 nearly unchanged since 2005, and in 2025 it rose to 20.0% from 19.9% in 2024, with a further rise to 20.2% projected for 2027.
The NEET rate rises as country income falls: 27.9% in low-income countries, 22.6% in lower-middle-income, 16.9% in upper-middle-income and 10.9% in high-income countries in 2025.
Source: International Labour Organization, 2026The Arab States (32.4%) and Northern Africa (30.1%) have the highest NEET rates, followed by Southern Asia (25.8%). In Southern Asia a young woman is 3.5 times as likely as a young man to be in NEET status, the widest gap of any region.
Source: International Labour Organization, 2026Nearly nine in ten young workers aged 15 to 29 in low- and lower-middle-income countries work informally, usually without social protection, compared with 11.7% in high-income countries.
Source: International Labour Organization, 2026Young people are nearly four times as likely as adults to be unemployed.
Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2026Each country is shaded by its latest available value, so you can see where the gap is widest. Hover or tap a country, search for one, or open the full table.
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Share of young people aged 15 to 24 who are neither employed nor in education or training (SDG indicator 8.6.1), from national labour force and household surveys compiled by the ILO; values are the latest year available per country (years differ, 2016 to 2025, most 2022 or later; older values are hidden, so China and some other countries have no data). Survey definitions and coverage differ between countries, a few values look out of line with neighbouring countries, and these national figures differ from the ILO's modelled global estimates.
Source: ILO (ILOSTAT), via World Bank Open Data. Latest year available per country; years differ.
Values load from World Bank Open Data. Simplified Natural Earth borders; they imply no position on disputed territories.
Instead of one “percent solved” score, DO GOOD rates three separate dimensions. A problem can have mature solutions that still reach too few people. These ratings are an editorial reading of the sources on this page, not a measured index.
Has the situation improved in the real world?
LowThe UN's 2021 progress report found the NEET share in 2019 nearly unchanged since 2005, and in 2025 it was still 20.0%, one in five young people. The 2020 target to reduce it substantially was missed.
How mature and validated are the available solutions?
ModerateYouth employment programmes have been widely evaluated: a review of 113 impact evaluations found that about a third of the estimated effects were positive and significant, but the average effect on employment and earnings was small. Design and delivery mattered more than the type of programme.
How widely are effective solutions actually used?
LowNearly nine in ten young workers in low- and lower-middle-income countries work informally, outside social protection and largely beyond the reach of employment services. Young people disconnected from school and formal work are often invisible to the systems meant to help them.
Global and regional figures are ILO modelled estimates built on national labour force surveys, with gaps filled statistically and series revised with each edition. Unemployment and NEET rates also miss much of the problem of poor-quality and informal work.
Youth unemployment edged up from 12.3% in 2023 to 12.4% in 2025 and the NEET rate from 19.7% to 20.0%, ending the post-pandemic improvement. The ILO projects broadly flat unemployment and a slightly rising NEET rate to 2027.
The usual measure of youth joblessness, the unemployment rate, counts only young people who have no work and are actively looking for it. In 2025 that was 12.4% of the labour force aged 15 to 24, about 67 million young people, and young people are nearly four times as likely as adults to be unemployed. A broader measure looks at everyone who is neither working nor in education or training, whether or not they are looking for a job. By that measure, 20% of all young people, more than 257 million, were outside work and education in 2025. After the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, both rates have edged up again since 2023, and between 2023 and 2025 youth unemployment rose in 105 countries and fell in 58.
Low unemployment does not always mean good jobs. In sub-Saharan Africa few young people can afford to be without work, and low unemployment can hide poor-quality jobs: nearly nine in ten young workers in low- and lower-middle-income countries work informally. Youth unemployment is highest in the Arab States (26.2%) and Northern Africa (22.6%), where at least one in three young people are NEET. Young women are hit hardest: their NEET rate is more than double that of young men, and more than nine in ten young women in NEET status are not looking for work, often because of unpaid care and domestic work. The ILO notes that young people who are detached from both school and the labour market are harder to bring back through policy than those who are unemployed, and that insecure first experiences of work affect their prospects for long-term income and productivity gains.
There is no single measure of whether young people have decent work. SDG target 8.6 is tracked with indicator 8.6.1, the share of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), and the ILO reports it alongside the youth unemployment rate. Four points shape what the figures mean:
Who counts as young
In international statistics, youth means people aged 15 to 24. Some analyses, for example of job quality or exposure to artificial intelligence, use a wider group aged 15 to 29, so figures are not always directly comparable.
Unemployment rate
A young person is unemployed if they have no work but are available for it and actively looking. The rate is a share of the youth labour force only, so students and young people who have given up looking are not included, and the rate says nothing about the quality of the jobs young people do have.
NEET rate
The NEET rate is the share of all young people, not just the labour force, who are neither employed nor in education or training. It includes unemployed young people who are not studying and young people outside the labour force altogether, such as those caring for family members full time.
Modelled global estimates
The ILO's global and regional figures are modelled estimates based on national labour force surveys, with gaps filled statistically for countries and years without data. The country figures on the map come directly from national surveys and can differ from them.
What works
Skills training, job-search help, wage subsidies and support for young entrepreneurs aim to bring young people into work. A review of 113 impact evaluations found that about a third of the estimated effects were positive and significant, that programmes did better in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income ones, and that effects grew over the longer term. Programmes that combined several services, profiled participants and followed them individually worked better.
Limits
The average effect was small, and the type of programme mattered less than how it was designed and delivered, so a successful model does not automatically work elsewhere. Programmes cannot make up for an economy that creates too few jobs.
What works
The ILO recommends preparing young people for work through good-quality schooling, apprenticeships and continued learning, so that they leave education with skills employers need. Demand is still growing in some knowledge-based technical occupations in science, health and engineering, while middle-skilled jobs for young people, especially clerical ones, have declined since 2023.
Limits
Skills alone do not create jobs. Where informal work dominates, most young people have no access to formal apprenticeships, and those already outside both school and work are the hardest to reach through education systems.
What works
Schemes such as the EU Youth Guarantee map and reach out to young people disconnected from education and formal employment, offer guidance and an individual action plan, and link them to a job, training or education, working with health and social services as well as employment offices. The ILO stresses that young people in NEET status are not one group and need different kinds of support.
Limits
Young people who have left school and never had a formal job are often invisible to conventional systems, so outreach takes sustained effort. It depends on cooperation between services that are usually run separately.
What works
Extending social protection to cover diverse forms of work, including informal and temporary jobs, gives young people some security when they lose work or change jobs. The ILO calls for expanding social protection and rights at work, particularly for young people in vulnerable situations.
Limits
Nearly nine in ten young workers in low- and lower-middle-income countries work informally, usually without any coverage, and extending protection to them requires financing that many governments lack.
What works
Because the main cause of youth joblessness is too few good jobs, the ILO calls for gender-responsive macroeconomic and sectoral policies that create more decent job opportunities, along with support for enterprise development and entrepreneurship. This matters most where the youth population is growing fast.
Limits
Job creation is slow and depends on growth, investment and trade conditions that are hard to steer. The youth population grew by nearly 25 million between 2023 and 2025, almost 60% of it in sub-Saharan Africa, so job creation there has to keep pace with rapid growth.
Promising, but not proven at scale. The stage shows how far each approach has come; it is not a recommendation.
The ILO estimates that 6.1% of jobs held by people aged 15 to 29 are in occupations most exposed to AI-related change, and that if just a tenth of these disappeared, 5.6 million young workers would be affected. It calls for a human-centred approach to AI governance so that the technology creates opportunities rather than deepening inequality. How this works in practice is still being worked out.
Some countries, such as the Philippines, combine community-based outreach with digital delivery of employment services and recognised certification of skills, so that young people without formal qualifications can show what they can do. Evidence on effects at scale is limited.
Community-based programmes, for example one run with SOS Children's Villages in Lesotho, combine vocational skills, entrepreneurship support, mentoring and youth participation. The ILO highlights such integrated, locally adapted approaches, but most are small and few have been rigorously evaluated.
Implementation gap
Youth unemployment rose in 8 of 11 world subregions between 2023 and 2025. The youth population grew by nearly 25 million in that period, almost 60% of it in sub-Saharan Africa, where the ILO notes especially strong demographic pressure on labour markets.
Implementation gap
Nearly nine in ten young workers in low- and lower-middle-income countries work informally. Employment services, labour law and social protection rarely reach them, and low unemployment rates can hide poor-quality work.
Coordination gap
More than nine in ten young women in NEET status are outside the labour force, and in one Latin American study young women spent 40 to 75 hours a week on unpaid domestic and care work. The gap between young women and men has barely narrowed since 2016, and closing it requires employment, care and social protection policies to work together.
Coordination gap
Young people who are disconnected from education and formal employment channels can be invisible to conventional systems, so no single service is responsible for them. Reaching them depends on partnerships between employment, education, health and social services that are often missing.
Technology gap
The biggest drop in jobs for young people has been in middle-skilled occupations, especially clerical and administrative roles. The ILO counts 6.1% of jobs held by people aged 15 to 29 as highly exposed to AI-related change, and it is not yet clear how this will change entry-level hiring.
Knowledge gap
In a review of 113 impact evaluations, the average effect of youth employment programmes was small and only about a third of the estimated effects were positive and significant. Because design and delivery matter more than the type of programme, results from one country are a weak guide to another.
Unresolved questions, not vetted breakthroughs. Answering any of them would change what is possible.
Will generative AI mainly remove the entry-level tasks young people learn on, or create new routes into work, and how do the effects differ between high-income countries and countries where most young people work informally?
Which combinations of care services, transport, social norms and job opportunities actually reduce the share of young women outside work and education, especially in Southern Asia, the Arab States and Northern Africa?
How can employment programmes that work in small trials be scaled up in low-income countries where most work is informal and public employment services are thin, and what do they cost per young person helped into decent work?
Unemployment and NEET rates miss young people stuck in insecure or informal jobs. Which measures of job quality and transitions from school to work would show whether young people's situation is really improving?
If you hire or manage people, consider paid internships or apprenticeships, and judge applicants on what they can do rather than only on previous experience they could not have had yet.
Offer time to a local school, youth centre or mentoring programme to help young people with job applications, interview practice or understanding a trade.
If you give to youth employment programmes, choose ones that follow participants over time and report whether they found and kept decent work, not only how many people were trained.
Ask your elected representatives to fund childcare and employment services for young people, and to extend social protection to young workers in temporary and informal jobs.
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International Labour Organization (ILO), published 2026
Latest ILO flagship report on youth labour markets (published 11 August 2026), with modelled estimates for 2025 and projections to 2027 of youth unemployment and NEET rates by sex, region and income group, plus analysis of informality, job quality and exposure to AI, and policy recommendations.
International Labour Organization (ILO), news release, 11 August 2026, published 2026
Summary of the 2026 youth report: 12.4% youth unemployment and 20% NEET rate in 2025, regional rates, informality, AI exposure and the ILO's five policy priorities.
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, published 2026
Wording of target 8.6 and indicator 8.6.1 and the annual UN progress summaries from 2017 to 2026 on youth NEET and unemployment rates.
World Development 114, 237–253 (Kluve, Puerto, Robalino and others), published 2019
Meta-analysis of 113 impact evaluations of youth employment programmes worldwide, with 3,105 effect estimates on employment and earnings, comparing programme types, design features and country income levels.
International Labour Organization (ILO) and EU–ILO Network of Youth Employment Experts, webinar page, August 2026, published 2026
Summary of the drivers of NEET status and of approaches discussed by ILO experts, including the EU Youth Guarantee, outreach and digital services in the Philippines, and community-based programmes in Lesotho.