GlobalEconomicCuratedmedium confidence

Youth Unemployment

A demographic bulge meeting an economy with nowhere to put it.

Severity score

37.7

Serious · default weighting

Trajectory

Worsening

What this is

Youth unemployment and underemployment remain far above adult rates, particularly across North Africa, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa where the working-age population is growing fastest. It correlates strongly with migration pressure, unrest and armed group recruitment.

Score breakdown

Loss of life

10

Direct and attributable mortality, normalised across annual and cumulative tolls.

Lives negatively impacted

72

People displaced, injured, food-insecure, exposed or otherwise materially harmed.

Financial cost

54

Direct damage, lost output and health-system spend attributable to the event.

Environmental impact

2

Emissions, habitat and biodiversity loss, contamination and irreversibility.

Trajectory

56

Whether the situation is escalating, and how much worse it is plausibly getting.