UN: 800 million young people may be left without jobs. Editorial: the blame lies with governments that failed to curb birth rates

This piece has two parts: the news and context with sources, followed by the Sardaana News editorial position.

News: UN warns of 800 million young people without jobs

As 24.kz reported on 20 October 2026, UN Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Alexander De Croo has warned that 800 million young people in developing countries risk being left without work. The original source is De Croo’s 13 October briefing, reported by UN News: “If you look at the next 15 years, there will be 1.2 billion young people graduating from school, going into the labour market. Unfortunately, for only 400 million of these, there will be jobs. For 800 million of these, there will not be jobs.” The UNDP press release puts the same gap over “the next decade”.

De Croo said the gap is driven by demographics — in many developing countries the median age is between 18 and 25 — and that the projections are based on the current state of technology. “That is not going to go by itself. This is the result of policy,” he said. UNDP launched two initiatives, the Investment Accelerator and the Jobs for Prosperity Facility, with pilots in Nepal, Yemen, Haiti, Lebanon and Ghana.

Which regions are hit hardest

UNDP also published the report No Time to Recover. It finds that the median developing country spends 9.5% of total government income on interest payments alone, and that the number of people in multidimensional poverty has risen for the first time since 2010. In its “Who is hit the hardest” box, UNDP estimates that if energy and food price rises were fully passed on to households, 66 million more people would fall into extreme poverty ($2.15 a day): 36 million (55%) in Sub-Saharan Africa and 20 million (31%) in South Asia. At $3.65 a day, South Asia (57 million) and Sub-Saharan Africa (32 million) lead. 84% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population and 71% of South Asia’s already live below $6.85 a day.

UNDP’s materials name regions, not individual countries: Nigeria, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Indonesia are not named in them.

Fertility

Total fertility rate (births per woman, 2024), World Bank data based on the UN World Population Prospects:

• Sub-Saharan Africa 4.26; Nigeria 4.38, Chad 6.03, DR Congo 5.98, Niger 5.93, Ethiopia 3.91.
• Pakistan 3.55, Bangladesh 2.14, Indonesia 2.12, India 1.96. World average 2.19.
• Rich countries: South Korea 0.75, Japan 1.15, Canada 1.25, Germany 1.36, Russia 1.42, Australia 1.48, France 1.61, USA 1.63. In Taiwan, according to the Ministry of the Interior, fertility fell to 0.695 in 2025 (0.885 in 2024).

Replacement-level fertility is about 2.1 births per woman.

Robots

According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), robots per 10,000 manufacturing employees in 2024 were: South Korea 1,220 (the world’s highest), Germany 449, Japan 446, USA 307, Taiwan 302, Canada 241. China accounted for 54% of all robots installed worldwide in 2024 (295,000 units).

Migration policy in rich countries

• Canada cut permanent-resident admissions from a previously planned 500,000 to 395,000 in 2025, 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027, and capped temporary residents for the first time.
• Germany: the Bundestag voted on 27 June 2025 to suspend family reunification for people with subsidiary protection; the measure applies for two years from 24 July 2025.
• Japan in July 2025 set up a government office for “orderly coexistence” with foreign nationals amid the rise of the “Japanese First” Sanseito party.

Sardaana News editorial position

The coming unemployment crisis will hit Africa, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Indonesia hardest, because their governments irresponsibly failed to curb very high birth rates. For decades these governments did not invest enough in education, family planning and job creation, and now hundreds of millions of young people are entering a labour market that has no place for them. This is a failure of state policy, and governments must answer for it.

The rich low-fertility countries — Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, France, Australia, Canada, the USA and even the poorer Russia — will not take these unemployed people even if they wanted to. Anti-migrant sentiment is rising there, and the AI and robotics revolution will make much human labour unnecessary. The peoples of Africa and South Asia deserve work and a decent life at home — and the duty to build it lies with their governments.

We wrote about this earlier: “High birth rates in India, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria are the irresponsibility of these countries’ governments”.