By Zambian Economist Analyst
Youth unemployment is being quoted constantly this campaign season, and the figures being used are wrong in both directions. Some are far too low to describe anything real. Others belong to a different country entirely.
This piece is about how to read the numbers, because the wrong statistic produces the wrong policy.
The number that looks impossibly good
World Bank and ILO modelled estimates put Zambian youth unemployment — ages 15 to 24 — at around 10%. Overall unemployment estimates for recent years fall in a similar low range depending on source and method.
Anyone who has spoken to a graduate in Lusaka knows that does not describe reality. The figure is not falsified; it is measuring something narrower than people assume.
Under the standard international definition, a person counts as employed if they did any work for pay or profit — even an hour — in the reference week. Someone selling airtime at a junction, helping on a family farm, or doing occasional piecework is employed. To be counted as unemployed you must have done no such work, be available to start, and have actively searched.
In an economy where a majority of the labour force is in agriculture and informal activity is the norm, almost nobody qualifies as unemployed. They are working. The question the statistic does not ask is whether that work pays enough to live on.
The number that belongs to another country
A figure of 45.8% youth unemployment has been circulating in Zambian discussion. It is real, recent and official — and it is South African, from Statistics South Africa’s first-quarter 2026 labour force survey.
South Africa has an unusual labour market with high formal-sector concentration and low informal absorption, which is exactly why its measured unemployment is among the highest in the world. Zambia’s structure is close to the opposite. Borrowing the number tells you nothing about Zambia.
If you see 45.8% attributed to Zambia over the next two weeks, it is an error.
What to measure instead
Three indicators describe Zambia’s youth employment problem far better than the unemployment rate:
- Underemployment. People working fewer hours than they want, or in work far below their skill level. This is where the graduate driving a taxi actually appears.
- NEET — not in education, employment or training. This captures young people who have disengaged entirely, including those who stopped searching. Discouraged workers vanish from the unemployment rate by definition.
- Earnings and informality. The share of young workers in informal arrangements, and what they actually earn. Employment that cannot fund a household is a different problem from no employment, and needs different policy.
ZamStats publishes Labour Force Survey reports carrying this detail. They are the right source, and they are more sobering than the headline rate.
Why this matters for policy
If you believe unemployment is 10%, the problem looks like matching — job boards, CV workshops, internship schemes. Cheap interventions for a small gap.
If you believe the problem is underemployment and low-productivity informal work, the answer is completely different: creating firms that can employ people productively, which requires electricity, credit, and demand.
That is why youth employment is not really a youth policy question. It is a question about whether the economy generates enough formal, productive firms — which runs through power supply, the cost of credit, and whether the mining supply chain can absorb Zambian suppliers.
Mining illustrates the trap precisely. Copper generates the revenue but is capital-intensive; its direct headcount does not scale with tonnage. The jobs sit in supply chains, which require formal, compliant, credit-worthy firms — which brings you to registration and tax compliance as employment policy rather than paperwork.
How to test a manifesto promise
When any party promises jobs for young people, ask four questions: is it recurrent or capital spending, what is the financing source, is there capacity to deliver it, and is it reversible? A youth employment scheme funded from recurrent spending with no exit is a permanent liability, not a jobs plan.
The framework is set out in full in the economics of Zambia’s 2026 election.
Figures as published by the World Bank, ILO and ZamStats and current as at July 2026. Definitions differ between sources; compare like with like before drawing conclusions.
