Incidence of Youth Unemployment and the Vulnerability Status of Unemployed Youths in Rajshahi City

Youth unemployment in urban areas poses an unprecedented challenges to the economic development of Bangladesh. Youth unemployment in Rajshahi city is a good example. The study tries to present the incidence of the youth unemployment in Rajshahi city to represent unemployed youths' vulnerability status. For this purpose, the study uses primary data collected from randomly selected 125 passed out students of different educational institutions in Rajshahi city. The study firstly applies descriptive statistics approach to describe the incidence of youth unemployment and secondly, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to present the vulnerability status of unemployed youths in the city. Results find a severe incidence of urban youth unemployment in Rajshahi city where both the youth unemployment rate and mean duration of unemployment are relatively high relative to the national rate. It is calculated that the youth unemployment rate is 61% and mean duration of unemployment is 2.5 years. The youths who are unemployed are leading miserable livelihoods through their haphazard lifestyles. The AHP results shows that the youths are highly vulnerable in economic, social and institutional indicators. Therefore, unemployed youths in Rajshahi city should be provided with economic incentives, awareness building training, and institutional facilities to create entrepreneurship opportunities.