World Employment and Social Outlook 2016: Trends for Youth

Global economic growth in 2016 is estimated to stand at 3.2 per cent, 0.4 percentage points lower than the figure predicted in late 2015. The downward revision is a result of recessions that were deeper than expected in some key emerging commodity-exporting countries, including Argentina, Brazil and the Russian Federation. In addition, growth in developing countries, at only 4.2 per cent in 2016, is at its lowest level since 2003. Despite anticipation of a slight improvement in global growth for 2017,
global investment and hiring decisions remain subdued in the face of the uncertainty generated by a rapidly changing environment. Consequently, the global youth unemployment rate is on the rise after a number of years of improvement,
and is expected to reach 13.1 per cent in 2016 (from 12.9 in 2015). This is very close to its historic peak in 2013 (at 13.2 per cent) and where it is expected to remain in 2017. As a result, after falling by some 3 million between 2012 and 2015, the number of unemployed youth globally will rise by half a million in 2016 to reach 71 million and will remain at this level in 2017.