Young professionals are entering a labour market with historically low global youth unemployment but sharply unequal access to secure work, education and international opportunity. In 2023, 64.9 million people aged 15–24 were unemployed worldwide, while one in five young people were not in employment, education or training. At the same time, employers expect technology and economic change to transform jobs rapidly through 2030.
Contents
- Young professionals in the global labour market
- Education-to-work transitions and NEET rates
- Job quality, education returns and skills mismatch
- Leadership skills and the future of work
- Gender, geography and opportunity gaps
- International mobility and global exchange
Young professionals in the global labour market
The global youth unemployment rate was 13% of the young labour force in 2023, the lowest rate in 15 years. The International Labour Organization (ILO) counted about 64.9 million unemployed people aged 15–24 worldwide that year. That total was nearly 4 million below the 2019 pre-pandemic level. These figures describe a broad age group that includes many people still in education, so they should not be read as a measure of unemployment among all working-age professionals.
Recovery has not been even. Youth unemployment rates remained above their 2019 levels in the Arab States, East Asia, and South-East Asia and the Pacific during the 2019–2023 period. In the Arab States and North Africa, about one in three economically active young people were unemployed in 2023. The geography of the future workforce is also changing: the ILO projects that Africa’s youth labour force will grow by 76 million by 2050, while every other region is projected to see a contraction in young workers. This is a forecast, not a recorded outcome.
The sectors employing young people have shifted over time. Services accounted for 45.9% of global youth employment in 2021, compared with 30.5% for agriculture. Industry’s share rose from 21.3% in 2001 to 23.6% in 2021. For leadership and global exchange, these figures point to a workforce increasingly connected to service economies, while agriculture and industry remain substantial sources of employment and regional identity.
Source: Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024: In figures and Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024.
Education-to-work transitions and NEET rates
The transition from education into professional life is not a single pathway. The ILO reported that one in five young people globally were not in employment, education or training (NEET) in 2023. Women represented about two-thirds of young people who were NEET. In 2024, 33% of the world’s youth lived in a country assessed as off track for Sustainable Development Goal target 8.6, which concerns reducing youth NEET rates.
Regional differences are large. In the ILO’s latest regional comparison in its 2024 report, youth NEET rates were below 15% in East Asia, Eastern Europe, North America, and Northern, Southern and Western Europe. The comparison uses the report’s latest available regional data and does not mean every country in those regions has the same rate.
OECD data for 2024 show how education and work can overlap. Across OECD countries, 54% of 18–24-year-olds were in education, and 19% combined education with work. Among 25–29-year-olds, 10% combined education with work. The Netherlands had the highest reported OECD share of 18–24-year-olds both enrolled in education and employed, at 51%.
| OECD transition indicator, 2024 | Share |
|---|---|
| 18–24-year-olds in education | 54% |
| 18–24-year-olds combining education and work | 19% |
| 25–29-year-olds combining education and work | 10% |
| Average NEET rate among 18–24-year-olds | 14% |
| 18–24-year-olds unemployed and out of work for at least 12 months | Less than 2% |
Across the OECD, the average NEET rate for 18–24-year-olds was 14% in 2024. More than 25% of this age group were NEET in Colombia, the Republic of Türkiye and OECD partner country South Africa. Around 4% of both 18–24-year-olds and 25–29-year-olds had been looking for work for less than one year, while less than 2% in both age groups were unemployed and out of work for at least 12 months.
Source: Transition from education to work: Where are today’s youth?, from Education at a Glance 2025, and Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024.
Job quality, education returns and skills mismatch
Having a job does not guarantee security. In the ILO’s 2024 comparison, a young adult aged 25–29 in a low-income country was at least three times more likely to find only insecure work than a counterpart in a high-income country. Three in four young people in sub-Saharan Africa lacked secure work in the latest comparison. By contrast, four in five young adult workers aged 25–29 in high-income countries were in regular paid employment, compared with one in five in low-income countries.
Qualifications also do not translate into the same labour-market outcome everywhere. Two in three young adult workers in developing economies held qualifications that did not match well to their jobs. Temporary paid jobs with contracts shorter than 12 months made up roughly one-fifth to one-quarter of young adults’ employment in the ILO’s 2024 report. Informal employment represented 57.8% of global employment in 2024.
The relationship between education and unemployment can be counterintuitive in poorer economies. In low-income countries in 2023, youth unemployment was 21.0% for people with advanced education, compared with 5.8% for people with basic education. This comparison does not show that education causes unemployment; it can reflect the scarcity of suitable professional jobs and the different labour-force participation patterns of people with more schooling.
Participation opportunities also vary by national income. Among 15–24-year-olds, school or training participation was 40.1% in low-income countries in 2023, compared with 62.6% in high-income countries. For young professionals, the challenge is therefore twofold: developing useful skills and building labour markets that can absorb those skills into secure, relevant work.
Source: Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024.
Leadership skills and the future of work
Employers surveyed for the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 expected both technology and wider economic pressures to reshape business by 2030. Advances in artificial intelligence and information processing were expected to transform business by 86% of surveyed employers. Broadening digital access was cited by 60%, robotics and automation by 58%, and energy generation, storage and distribution by 41%.
Economic and geopolitical conditions were also part of the forecast. Half of surveyed employers expected rising living costs to transform their business by 2030, while 42% expected a general economic slowdown. Geoeconomic fragmentation and geopolitical tensions were expected to transform business by 34% of surveyed organizations. These are employer expectations for 2025–2030, not observed changes in employment.
The World Economic Forum projected 170 million jobs created globally by labour-market transformation by 2030 and 92 million current jobs displaced. The projected net result was 78 million additional jobs. It also estimated that 39% of workers’ existing skill sets could be transformed or outdated between 2025 and 2030.
Skills development is consequently a leadership issue. Sixty-three percent of surveyed employers identified skills gaps as a major barrier to business transformation through 2030. Eighty-five percent planned to prioritize workforce upskilling, 70% expected to hire staff with new skills, and 40% planned to reduce staff as their skills became less relevant. For young professionals, these figures support a practical emphasis on adaptability, continuous learning and the ability to work across changing technical and cultural environments.
Source: The Future of Jobs Report 2025 and 2. Jobs outlook.
Gender, geography and opportunity gaps
OECD education and employment data show a persistent gender pattern among 18–24-year-olds. About 55% of women in this age group were in education in both 2019 and 2024, compared with 49% of men. About 36% of men were employed in both years, compared with 28% of women. These figures describe OECD averages and do not establish the same pattern in every country.
Country-level changes can move in different directions. In Estonia, the employment ratio for men aged 18–24 fell from 41% in 2019 to 29% in 2024, while the ratio for women rose from 28% to 38%. In Norway, the employment share of 18–24-year-olds fell from 40% to 27%, while the share in education rose from 51% to 67% between 2019 and 2024.
Education level also changes the size of the employment gap. Among 25–34-year-olds without an upper-secondary qualification, women’s employment rate was 25 percentage points below men’s in OECD countries in 2023. Among people with tertiary qualifications, the OECD gender gap in employment rates was 6 percentage points. The figures underline why leadership development and global exchange need to consider both access to education and the conditions that follow it.
Source: Transition from education to work: Where are today’s youth? and Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024.
International mobility and global exchange
International education remains a selective form of global exchange. Internationally mobile students represented 2.8% of tertiary students worldwide in 2023. The share was 7.2% in Small Island Developing States and 4.9% in sub-Saharan Africa. Scholarship disbursements within the education sector totaled USD 1.7 billion in 2024, or USD 1.9 billion when all sectors were included.
Mobility is more common at advanced levels in OECD countries. In 2024, international students represented about 5% of bachelor’s enrolments, 19% of master’s enrolments and 27% of doctoral enrolments. About 30% of international students were enrolled in STEM programmes, compared with 19% of domestic students.
The origins of international students were concentrated geographically. Students from Asia accounted for 58% of international students enrolled in OECD countries in 2023, while Europe accounted for 19% of international students’ regions of origin. These shares describe OECD enrolments and regions of origin, not the global distribution of every internationally mobile student.
For young professionals, international exchange can connect education, leadership and labour-market networks, but the participation statistics show that mobility is not universal. Its reach depends on the availability of scholarships, the level of study, national education systems and the ability to move across borders. Any global exchange initiative should therefore distinguish between the visibility of mobile students and the much larger population that remains educated and employed locally.
Source: International student mobility in OECD countries and Monitoring education in the SDGs.