RANGPUR, Bangladesh—In July 2024, when young Bangladeshis frustrated with their job prospects were taking to the streets, Faruk Ahmed Shipon joined them each day.
To the amazement of the 25-year-old, the demonstrations grew into a revolution that toppled Bangladesh’s authoritarian leader, Sheikh Hasina, who had ruled the country for most of Shipon life. Their success helped inspire a string of similar protests by young people in countries such as Nepal, Indonesia and Madagascar.
But now, as Bangladesh prepares to vote in the first national elections since that Gen Z revolution, Shipon—who has struggled to find work since finishing graduate school last year—is losing hope that new leaders can solve the problems that are plaguing so many in his generation.
“A job is the first priority for me,” he said. “If I have money, I can dream of many things. But if I have no money, how do we eat? How do we clothe ourselves? Where would we live?”
Shipon’s frustration reflects a broader reckoning for Bangladesh’s young protesters. Many believed that ousting Hasina would usher in a more democratic system and unlock economic opportunity. Instead, millions of university graduates are entering the bleakest job market in years.
The interim government that took over in 2024, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, has promised democratic and economic reforms but has delivered few tangible results, critics say. Indeed, many young people are particularly disappointed that student leaders, who initially joined the new government and then formed the National Citizen Party, have failed to improve their lives.
Bangladesh will hold parliamentary elections on Feb. 12, its first since Hasina’s downfall. With her Awami League party barred from contesting the vote, polls show a tight race between the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, or BNP, and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist party that was banned from participating in politics under Hasina. The youth-led NCP has formed an alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami, which has alarmed many students who worry about its conservative religious ideology, especially toward women.
The run-up to the election has been marred by violence, including sectarian tensions. Bangladesh is a Muslim-majority country, with a sizable Hindu minority that has long enjoyed support from India. Since the 2024 protests, tensions between the groups have risen in part because Hasina fled to India after being ousted and remains in exile there.
In December, nationwide protests erupted after gunmen shot and killed a prominent student activist known for pro-Islamic and anti-India views. In a separate incident, a Hindu factory worker was lynched the same month.
Economic growth was already slowing before regime change, as investors grew wary of corruption, poor infrastructure and bureaucratic red tape. Domestic investment has been stagnant for a decade, while foreign direct investment has fallen for the last four years. Imports of capital machinery—a key indicator of industrial expansion—dropped nearly 26% in the fiscal year 2025 compared with the previous year.
The interim government also cut incentives on garment and other exports due to World Trade Organization rules, adding to business uncertainty.
“No foreign investors will come during this uncertain period, without political stability, without an elected government,” said Fahmida Khatun, director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a think tank based in Dhaka. “They are following a wait-and-see policy.”
Bangladesh was long hailed as a development success story, boasting per capita income higher than India’s and notching gains in life expectancy and female literacy—driven, in part, by its rise as a low-cost garment exporter.
But even the garment sector—Bangladesh’s second-largest employer after agriculture—has shed jobs. Employment fell to 3.7 million last year from 4.1 million in 2019, according to Fazlee Shamim Ehsan, president of the Bangladesh Employers’ Federation.
Automation has played a key role. Ehsan, who operates two garment factories and a textile mill, has cut his workforce by a third to about 3,700 workers after installing machines that handle tasks such as trimming threads and identifying production bottlenecks. He recently purchased AI-powered design software that enables two designers to do work previously handled by a dozen.
Total employment in Bangladesh fell by nearly two million in 2024 from the previous year, according to the World Bank. Another 800,000 jobs are forecast to have disappeared in 2025.
Tarique Rahman, a leading contender for prime minister, said his BNP party plans to offer incentives to grow labor-intensive sectors such as footwear and pharmaceuticals and expand vocational training in trades like plumbing and carpentry.
That could help address a growing mismatch in Bangladesh’s labor market: Young people with higher-education qualifications are more likely to be unemployed than those with basic schooling.
The number of universities in Bangladesh has boomed in recent years, with at least 700,000 graduates entering the labor force annually. But many graduate with no practical skills, say businesses.
“We don’t need so many history students,” said Anwar-ul Alam Chowdhury, a garment manufacturer based in Dhaka. “It doesn’t match with the jobs.”
Chowdhury, who employs 11,500 workers, said he rarely hires university graduates for his four factories and three textile mills, which make clothes for customers like H&M and Armani Exchange. He prefers people who went to vocational schools and “want to work on the floor.”
One-third of Bangladesh’s unemployed population—about 900,000 people—are university graduates, nearly double the level of 2017, according to government data. The unemployment rate for college graduates rose to nearly 14% in 2024, from 5% in 2010. By contrast, those with no formal education had a jobless rate of 1.3%.
Since completing his master’s degree in English last year, Shipon has struggled to find work, applying for roles at schools, banks and a rural utility company without success. He scrapes together about $290 a month by teaching English and tutoring students who themselves dream of landing a government job, where millions compete for a few positions and prestigious posts require passing arduous exams.
Half of his income goes toward caring for his mother, whom he has supported since he was 15, after his father abandoned the family. Her expenses include $20 a month in rent for a two-room tin shed and about $120 for food and medicine.
Last year, Shipon married a fellow English student but the pair can’t afford to leave their families’ homes and live on their own.
Siphon first took to the streets in 2024 to demonstrate against a quota system for coveted government jobs, which many said favored those with connections.
Then, a classmate of his, Abu Sayed, was killed in an incident that transformed demonstrations over jobs into a fight for a more democratic Bangladesh. Sayed was protesting at a university in Rangpur in northwestern Bangladesh when he was shot and killed by police. Videos capturing the scene sparked outrage and galvanized the protests.
Now, Siphon fears that the sacrifices of protesters like Sayed will be for nothing. Among Sayed’s friends and family, many of whom joined in the revolution, few have found stable jobs.
Sayed’s cousin, Ruhul Amin, got a job teaching religious studies at a school for $115 a month—less than the salary of an entry-level state worker cleaning classrooms at a university in Rangpur.
“Even if a government job is lower class, it is still prestigious in Bangladesh,” Amin said. “It comes with good pay and lots of perks.”
Shipon, in contrast, said he has lost faith in finding stable work and in Bangladesh’s future. His dream is to leave the country and move permanently to Sweden or Switzerland. Many of his friends also want to emigrate.
“When I look back at what we did, I feel disappointed,” he said. “Only Sheikh Hasina changed. Everything else stayed the same. A revolution is meaningless if only one person has changed.”
Write to Shan Li at shan.li@wsj.com