The World Bank has issued a stark warning: developing economies are projected to face a shortfall of approximately 800 million jobs over the next 15 years. This comes as a record 1.2 billion young people in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) reach working age between 2025 and 2035, while these countries are expected to generate only about 400 million new jobs.
World Bank Group President Ajay Banga delivered the message at the Climate Finance Summit in Antalya, Türkiye, alongside the UN-convened COP31 climate talks. He described the gap as having "profound consequences for poverty and prosperity, for migration, for stability." The figures, first outlined in a February blog post and reiterated in his Annual Meetings speech in Bangkok, have become a central theme of the institution's agenda this year.
Regional Disparities in the Youth Surge
The underlying analysis, detailed in the World Bank's note "The Global Jobs Challenge," reveals a highly concentrated demographic wave. Sub-Saharan Africa will account for over 330 million new entrants, the largest regional share, followed by South Asia and East Asia and Pacific, each with about 280 million. The Middle East and North Africa will add 170 million, while Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe and Central Asia together contribute 165 million.
For Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa, these will be the largest youth cohorts the regions have ever seen. In contrast, East Asia and Pacific peaked in the decade to 1988, a wave that the World Bank links to the region's "transformative growth experience."
Why the Jobs Math Is Getting Harder
The report highlights that potential growth in EMDEs has slowed from an annual average of 6% in the 2000s to just over 4% in the 2020s, meaning each year of expansion creates fewer opportunities. Fiscal constraints are also tighter: the regions facing the largest labor force expansion are generally poorer and more indebted. Additionally, around 270 million young people in 2035 will live in fragile and conflict-affected areas, further straining resources.
Banga noted that "rising debt, conflict, challenges with resiliency of infrastructure, and natural disasters" are increasingly limiting these countries' ability to meet development goals. The report also warns that export-led growth, the model that powered East Asia, may be harder to replicate amid "tepid trade growth, mounting trade tensions, and fragmentation," while artificial intelligence could create jobs in some areas but uncertainty in others.
The World Bank's Three-Pillar Response
The bank's strategy rests on three pillars: foundational infrastructure, a business-friendly environment, and mobilizing private capital. It is prioritizing five sectors that can create jobs at scale: infrastructure (including energy), agribusiness, healthcare, tourism, and value-added manufacturing. Agriculture employs almost half of all workers in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the World Bank plans to more than double its agribusiness support to $9 billion a year.
Nearly 600 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity, a major constraint on business. The bank's Business Ready (B-READY) 2025 data shows low-income economies scoring 34.12 out of 100 on public services, versus 67.09 for high-income economies, highlighting implementation gaps as "the central challenge."
Implications for Investors and Emerging Markets
For investors, the World Bank frames the jobs gap as both a risk and an opportunity. Banga argues that the same demographics will create "the largest growth in future consumers, producers, and markets," with sustained demand for energy, food systems, healthcare, infrastructure, housing, and manufacturing. In the fiscal year to June 30, the World Bank Group mobilized $112 billion in private capital, up from about $35 billion in fiscal 2022.
The scale of the challenge is unprecedented, but the bank insists it is not inevitable. As Banga put it, the projection "does not have to be our future."
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
