“A Diploma No Longer Guarantees Anything”: How Azerbaijan’s Labor Market Is Changing in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Baku has always been built as a dialogue between eras—sometimes harmonious, more often tense. Here, the medieval walls of Icherisheher stand just minutes away from the flowing forms of the Heydar Aliyev Center, designed by Zaha Hadid. This is a city that does not so much grow as accumulate—like a geological cross-section in which each layer speaks of power, money, and visions of the future.

A fatal incident at the National Oncology Center has reignited debate over structural weaknesses in Azerbaijan’s cancer care system, drawing attention to gaps in access, financing and patient support that experts say have persisted despite rising public spending.

At the start of each academic year, lecture halls at Azerbaijan State University of Economics and Baku State University fill with the same expectation: that education will serve as a ticket to a stable life. But by the end of their studies, more and more students come to realise that this contract no longer holds.

The level of registered crime in Azerbaijan has decreased since the beginning of the year, however the structure of offenses, especially among young people, is changing rapidly, shifting from street forms to digital and network-based ones, according to data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan.