‘Will it give me a job?’: Nepal’s election promises don’t stop youth exodus

Nepal’s youth unemployment rate is the highest among all of South and South-east Asian nations. Read more at straitstimes.com.

KATHMANDU - At a training centre in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, Mr Rahul Pariyar carefully hooks his harness to a rope, learning the basic skills he will need for painting walls, cleaning high rises and other construction work in the United Arab Emirates.

“I am not happy to leave my family back and go for work in a foreign country. But what to do?” said the 21-year-old in a yellow hard hat, explaining how wages in Dubai are about four times that of Nepal.

The Himalayan nation, perched between China and India, will go to the polls on March 5, an election triggered by historic youth-led protests fuelled by the lack of jobs and endemic corruption that forced an elected prime minister to resign.

But Mr Pariyar said: “I am not interested in the upcoming elections. It does not pay my wages.”

Nepal’s youth unemployment rate of 20.6 per cent is the highest among all of South and South-east Asian nations, according to World Bank data, underscoring the failure of successive governments to solve a jobs crisis.

At least three million of Nepal’s 30 million people – many of them part of the generation that revolted in September 2025 – currently work overseas, mainly in the Middle East, according to industry officials.