The African Regional Organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa) has called for young workers to be placed at the centre of Africa’s labour and economic policies, warning that widespread informal, insecure and poorly paid employment is undermining the continent’s potential demographic dividend.

ITUC-Africa, representing 18 million workers through 107 affiliated national centres across 52 countries, made the call in a statement marking the World Day for Decent Work, with General Secretary Joel Odigie urging governments, employers and regional institutions to prioritise quality job creation, living wages and social protection for young workers.

The organisation said Africa’s youthful population should be an economic advantage, but warned that millions of young people are instead being pushed into informal and precarious work because they cannot afford to remain unemployed.

According to the organisation, the International Labour Organisation’s Global Employment Trends for Youth 2026 showed that nearly nine in 10 young workers in low- and lower-middle-income countries work informally, reflecting what it described as a profound decent-work deficit.

ITUC-Africa said the challenge extends beyond unemployment, as many young workers operate without employment contracts, social protection, safe working conditions or effective representation, while others face exploitation in platform and gig work and dangerous migration routes in search of better livelihoods.

It also drew attention to the vulnerability of young women, who, it said, face discrimination and gender-based violence in the workplace.

Odigie said young Africans were nevertheless organising across workplaces, markets, offices, communities, online platforms and trade unions to demand greater influence over decisions affecting their livelihoods.

The organisation, therefore, urged African governments, the African Union, regional economic communities, and employers to make decent job creation a central component of economic policy, particularly through industrialisation, structural transformation, and opportunities created under the African Continental Free Trade Area.

It also demanded living wages and universal social protection for young, informal, migrant and platform workers, alongside safer and fairer labour migration policies and stronger protection against Afrophobia and xenophobia.

ITUC-Africa further called for greater mobilisation of domestic resources by tackling illicit financial flows and unsustainable debt, arguing that these pressures are reducing the resources available for investment in employment, education and healthcare.

The organisation also urged its affiliated unions to intensify the organisation of young workers and create greater leadership opportunities for them within the trade union movement.

“Decent work is a right,” ITUC-Africa said, stressing that Africa’s young people should have a future built on dignity, justice and economic security.