GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — Global youth unemployment is at its lowest level for 15 years, the United Nations (UN) said Monday, though not all regions have yet recovered from the COVID-19 slump.

The number of 15- to 24-year-olds who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) is concerning, the UN’s labour agency said, adding that the post-COVID-19 pandemic recovery has not been universal in all regions.

“Young people in certain regions and many young women are not seeing the benefits of the economic recovery,” the International Labour Organization (ILO) said.

At 64.9 million, the total number of unemployed young people worldwide in 2023 was the lowest since the start of the millennium, the ILO said.

At 13 per cent, the youth unemployment rate last year represents a 15-year low and a fall from the pre-pandemic rate of 13.8 per cent in 2019, it said.

“It is expected to fall further to 12.8 per cent this year and next,” it added.

“The picture, however, is not the same across regions. In the Arab States, East Asia and South-East Asia and the Pacific, youth unemployment rates were higher in 2023 than in 2019.”

The ILO’s Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024 report cautioned over the growing casualisation of work for young people — and the widening gap in the supply of young graduates and the number of suitable jobs for them to take up.

It said too many young people were NEETs and opportunities to access decent jobs were limited in emerging and developing economies.

The NEET rate stood at 20.4 per cent in 2023 — and two in three NEETs are women.

The NEET rate was 28.1 per cent for young women in 2023, and 13.1 per cent for young men.

Globally, more than half of young workers are in the informal employment.

Only in high- and upper-middle-income economies are the majority of young workers today in regular, secure work.

“None of us can look forward to a stable future when millions of young people around the world do not have decent work and as a result, are feeling insecure and unable to build a better life for themselves and their families,” said ILO chief Gilbert F Houngbo.

“Peaceful societies rely on three core ingredients: stability, inclusion, and social justice; and decent work for the youth is at the heart of all three,” the former prime minister of Togo added.

The report said that despite the positive economic and labour market signals, surveys show young people are increasingly anxious about the future.

“Many young people today feel stressed about job loss and job stability, the state of the economy, a lack of social mobility across generations, and their prospects for eventual financial independence,” it said.

Houngbo said this could be because most available jobs “are temporary and lack social protection”.

“We have seen very little progress in getting more young people in decent jobs, and this in fact has been the overall trend for the last 20 years,” he said.