news · Jul 2025
West Africa Youth Employment Data Launch
By Africa Youth Employment Programme
World Data Lab and the Mastercard Foundation launch new West Africa employment forecasts, expanding the Africa Youth Employment Clock to deeper sub-regional detail.
The Africa Youth Employment Clock now offers a sub-regional view of West Africa, drawing on harmonised labour-force, demographic and education data across 16 economies. The new release was developed in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation and makes it possible — for the first time — to compare youth employment trajectories at the sub-national and corridor level.
Beneath the headline figure of more than 100 million West African youth in the labour market lies a profoundly uneven story. Coastal economies are creating formal jobs at pace, particularly in services and digital sectors, while inland and Sahelian economies remain reliant on agriculture and informal commerce.
Our new dashboards let policymakers, donors and employers identify where targeted interventions can move the needle fastest — whether that means scaling vocational training in northern Nigeria, expanding digital apprenticeships in Côte d'Ivoire or unlocking SME finance in Senegal.
The data is updated quarterly and is freely available for use by governments and partners working on the Mastercard Foundation's Young Africa Works strategy.
