Youth unemployment is one of the serious problems facing Ethiopia. It creates many economic and social problems in the economy. The problem is high in rural areas in general, Yilmanadensa District in particular, where youth face severe complexity in being paid employment. However, the determinants of youth unemployment in the District are not yet assessed. In light of this problem, the main objective of this study is to identify and examine the determinants of youth unemployment. To realize the specified objective, mutually primary and secondary data sources were used. Primary data were collected by focus group discussion in three groups and structured questioner from 197 youths randomly selected in 3 kebeles of Yilmanadensa district were used for the study. To supplement the primary data, secondary data were gathered from published and unpublished sources. To come up with the results the researchers employed both descriptive and inferential analysis such as simple frequencies, cross tabulation, and binary logistic regression model. The study found that 30.96% of the respondents were unemployed while 69.04% of them were employed at the time of the survey. For the binary Logit model, variables such as work experience, skill mismatch, household income, infrastructure, social network, and eligible for fund were identified as positively significant at a 1% significance level, plus member of cooperative positively significance at 5% significance level and also migration status and access to saving and credit service were negatively significant at 10 % significant level determinants of rural youth unemployment in Yilmanadensa district. In addition sex, age, marital status and education were found insignificantly associated with youth unemployment. Based on the findings of the study: recommended that government of the country should encourage youth to improve their skill in such a way matches with the labor market and experience, address the problem of access of road and electric power, minimize the eligible criteria for fund, encourage youth to increase their social network, and also alternative job opportunity should be facilitated those recommendations should be improved. Key words: youth, employment status, Yilmanadensa, Ethiopia