The Most Unemployed Youth in the World
South Africa's youth unemployment crisis is not just an economic failure - it is a warning we have seen before
By Sacha Knox:
Students' protests in Bangladesh in 2024. (Image: BBC)
In 2024, young people in Kenya and Bangladesh - many of them unemployed, educated, and seething with frustrated potential - took to the streets and toppled or seriously threatened sitting governments. In Kenya, a largely Gen Z-led movement against a controversial finance bill nearly brought down the Ruto administration. In Bangladesh, student-led protests ended Sheikh Hasina's fifteen-year rule in what analysts widely described as the first successful Gen Z revolution. Then, in September 2025, thousands of young Nepalis - frustrated by corruption, scarce economic opportunity, and a gover...