Why are so many young adults not in education, employment or training? The latest statistics show that almost one million 16 to 24-year-olds are unemployed, or ‘Neet’, to use the inappropriately cheery-sounding acronym. Fractionally down on the previous quarter, this is still close to a ten-year high. The number of Neets has been consistently above 900,000 since early 2024, peaking at 987,000 – around one-in-eight young people – earlier this year.
Falling out of education and employment in your early twenties can have a devastating impact. More than half a million of those who are not currently working or studying have never had a job. Neets face not just financial hardship but loneliness, boredom and ill health. And yet this is not a new problem. The Neet acronym was adopted by Tony Blair, who made ending social exclusion one of his government’s top priorities. Yet despite this, the number of Neets rose steadily throughout New Labour’s time in office, before falling sharply until 2022. Over the past three years, youth unemployment has been on the rise again.
Explanations abound. There’s Covid, of course. Children who dropped out of education during lockdown were always likely to struggle to find work or a place at college. But the problem goes deeper. Long gone are the days when people, like my father, could leave school on a Friday and start working as a labourer the following Monday. Deindustrialisation means fewer jobs for working-class kids. Unsurprisingly, those most likely to be Neet are young white men, without qualifications, who live in the north east of England.
Not only have successive governments failed to grip this issue, but some policies have harmed young people’s job prospects. The decision by Rachel Reeves to increase National Insurance paid by employers and the minimum wage led many firms to freeze recruitment. Entry-level and graduate jobs, roles that have traditionally offered young people their first step on the employment ladder, have plummeted. The retail sector has been badly hit, with the number of vacancies falling by more than a quarter, while hospitality bosses are currently looking for 20,000 fewer recruits than this time last year. Saturday jobs and paper rounds, the most entry-level opportunities of all, have been on their way out for years.
Historically, more women than men have been Neet. Girls were more likely to have caring responsibilities and less likely to move away from home for a job, while boys could pick up manual work without having a string of exam certificates. But by 2017, when girls were far more likely to go to university than boys, the Neet gender gap seemed to have all but disappeared. Then, the number of men not in work, education or training soared. Young men without qualifications were not needed as labourers, nor were they wanted by the service sector. Over the past 18 months, the number of female Neets has also been rising steadily.
It’s not that there are simply no jobs available. There are still some vacancies to be found for those sufficiently determined to secure employment. But many young people do not seem to be at all determined. Indeed, sickness is now one of the main reasons why young adults drop out of work and education. According to the Department for Education in 2023, almost one out of every five young people labelled Neet had a mental health condition. For the most part, it’s not bad backs, then, but anxiety that’s keeping young adults out of work.
These young adults face a double whammy. They’ve grown up in a culture where teachers, celebrities and well-meaning campaigners have told them to dwell on their feelings and recognise their vulnerabilities. Phrases like ‘man up’ have been replaced by ‘but how are you, really?’ Of course, those truly suffering from debilitating conditions need to be helped. But getting out into the world and doing something productive can have huge benefits for people who feel worried or sad.
At the same time, a record number of people are receiving disability benefit payments for mental health problems. In other words, there are financial incentives to being Neet. And this message seems to be getting out to those who are in work. A report by PwC, published earlier this year, found that four in ten members of Generation Z who are currently employed would rather quit work altogether and live off unemployment benefits than stay in their current job.
Over the past few weeks, we have been bombarded with rumours about what might be in next week’s Budget. But the plight of Neets has been largely absent from this discussion. To genuinely help this group, we need economic growth and reindustrialisation. In the short term, the Chancellor could usefully make it cheaper for employers to hire people in entry-level roles while also cutting disability benefits for young adults with anxiety and depression. I won’t hold my breath.
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