GENEVA: Youth unemployment is coming down in rich countries but rising in China and Brazil as economic growth abates, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) said on Thursday.

Worldwide, the number of unemployed youth — those aged 15 to 24 who want to work but cannot find jobs — dropped to 73.3 million in 2014 from a peak of 76.6 million in 2009. But the youth unemployment rate in China has risen from 9.3 per cent in 2010 to 10.6 per cent last year.

It is projected to reach 10.8 per cent this year and 11.1 per cent in 2016, ILO said. China’s youth population will actually have shrunk by a quarter over those seven years, to 181 million, but number of young people without jobs will have dropped by only one million over the same period.