More than one in three highly educated young people in Bangladesh are unemployed, according to International Monetary Fund research, placing the country among Asian economies with the highest joblessness rates for educated youth.
Around 36% of Bangladeshis aged 15 to 24 with advanced education — defined by the IMF as postsecondary education — are unemployed, according to data highlighted in the September 2026 edition of the IMF’s Finance & Development magazine.
The figure is far higher than Bangladesh’s overall unemployment rate and also sharply above the unemployment rate among people of all ages with advanced education, which the IMF chart puts at roughly 11%.
The findings point to a particularly large gap between education and employment prospects for young Bangladeshis entering the labour market.
The IMF data, covering 2025 or the latest available year, show that the problem is particularly pronounced across South Asia.
Sri Lanka records the highest unemployment rate among highly educated youth in the countries shown, at around 43%, followed closely by India at roughly 42%. Bangladesh comes next at about 36%.
The three South Asian economies stand well above most of Southeast Asia.
Among highly educated young people, unemployment is about 18% in Indonesia, 16% in Vietnam, 13% in Malaysia and Thailand, and 12% in the Philippines, according to the IMF chart. Singapore is substantially lower, at about 8%.
The comparison is also notable because ordinary youth unemployment is considerably lower than graduate youth unemployment across all three South Asian countries shown. Bangladesh’s overall youth unemployment rate is around 10% in the IMF chart, compared with about 36% among young people with postsecondary education.
India’s corresponding rates are about 18% and 42%, while Sri Lanka records overall youth unemployment of roughly 22% against about 43% among those with advanced education.
The IMF described the phenomenon as a “graduate glut”, saying Asia’s most educated young people often face some of its highest unemployment rates. The figures were presented during the IMF’s April 2026 Regional Economic Outlook briefing for Asia and the Pacific and subsequently published in Finance & Development.
“Highly educated young workers are struggling to find positions that match their qualifications,” Krishna Srinivasan, director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department, said at the April briefing.
The IMF linked the pattern to persistent mismatches between the skills provided by education systems and those sought by employers.
It also warned that artificial intelligence could add to labour-market pressures if its adoption outpaces workers’ ability to acquire new skills, although AI could also produce gains in productivity and economic growth.
Srinivasan said the situation strengthened the case for making universities and technical education more responsive to labour-market demand and improving reskilling programmes.
The IMF’s latest assessment comes as Bangladesh faces a broader challenge of generating employment alongside economic growth. During a visit to Dhaka in March, Srinivasan said discussions with the government had included the need for reforms aimed at delivering “strong, inclusive and job-rich growth.”