Youth employment challenge is a criti cal development problem facing Ethiopia. The situation forrnurban yo uth including that of Woli so town is even worse. Previously there is no study conductedrnre lated to the determinants of youth unemployment in the town. In line with thi s, the objective ofrnthis study is to explore the employment status and possible factors (demographic and socioeconomic)rnexplaining youth unemployment in the town. The study used mainly primary datarnco ll ected from 462 yo uths randomly se lected from the three kebeles of Wol iso Town, South WestrnShowa Zone. Oromia National Regional State. Ethiopia. Frequencies, cross tabulations and binaryrnlogistic regression model were used to analyze the data. The study results indicate that , out of therntotal responden ts 47.4 percent were found unemployed, while 52.6 percent were employed at therntime of the survey. The results of bivariate analysis shows that teenagers, young females and nonmigrants,rnyo uth of secondary and below educational level, youth with lack of work experiences,rnlittle or no social network contact. less or no motives promoting working career, youth fromrnilliterate mother and lower family income were found unemployed in the town. In multivariaternanalysis, age, sex, migration, education, work experience, motive toward work, and familyrnincome signific ant ly determi ne youth unemployment in the town. Social network and motherrneducation were fo und in signi ficant. Based on resu lts of the study, improve education and ski ll ofrnyouth. empower fema les. improve yo uth attit udes towards job creation were some of therns llgg~ s l ed rCCOJ11I1lc'nda l ions.rnKeywords: youth unemployment, demographic & socio-economic variables.