Job crisis to get worse? 1.2 bn people to compete for 400 mn jobs, says World Bank Group president Ajay Banga at WEF 2026

The job market is set to get even more competitive over the next 12-15 years. World Bank Group President Ajay Banga said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that around 1.2 billion youngsters would be competing for around 400 million jobs. 

"Over the next 12-15 years, 1.2 billion young people in the emerging markets will become eligible for a job in the sense that they will come to the age of 18. And yet those very same economies are currently projected to produce around 400 million jobs," Banga told Bloomberg. 

He also stated that AI and/or some other technology in the future could lead to some change, but the World Bank is "unlikely to be wrong about 800 million people". 

During the conversation, he further mentioned that Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam offered to help Banga in his mission on one condition -- the drive to put effort, energy, money and capital to work. 

Banga said stronger physical and human infrastructure, along with business-friendly policies, are vital as the private sector creates jobs while the government enables growth.

Citing the example of Singapore, he said, "Even an outstanding government like Singapore enables the private sector in Singapore to create jobs, and then if you provide the right catalytic financing for that private sector, particularly micro and small enterprises, which is where the majority of jobs get created, then you create the virtual flywheel the positive flywheel that you want." 

The World Bank Group President, however, said that emerging markets should not rely only on the outsourcing of jobs from developed countries as a primary source of job generation due to political and geopolitical concerns. Furthermore, he said that AI can also help farmers, healthcare workers, and education workers do a better job. 

Furthermore, he outlined the 5 specific sectors that the World Bank Jobs Council is focusing on, with the top three being infrastructure, primary healthcare, and agriculture for small farmers. 

Talking about the agricultural sector, Banga went back to his days in India and at Nestlé. 

"I have grown up in India. You know I'm a sort of son of Punjab, even though my father was an army officer, and I worked in Nestle for the first few years of my life. We were based in the Punjab, collecting milk from farmers. The tragedy is that farmers today don't want to be farmers if they're microsized. They sell their farm, and they end up as urban poor. An objective to make them access scalable pricing and commodities and technology and markets, and get them the benefit of scale, which otherwise they don't lack, is our third category." 

He added that the fourth and fifth categories that create the highest number of jobs are tourism and value-added manufacturing.