Young people not in work or education fall below 1 million
The figure is 30,000 more than a year ago but the current data is a boost to efforts to halt the growth in economic inactivity.
The number of young people not in education, employment or training (Neet) in the UK decreased below 1 million in the current three month period.
The Office for National Statistics said its surveys revealed an estimated 981,000 Neets in April to June compared with 1,012,000 in January to March, a boost to the government’s efforts to reverse years of increased economic inactivity among those aged 16 to 24.
UK youth unemployment and economic inactivity
The number of Neets was down 30,000 on a year earlier on an annual basis but the drop in the most recent three-month period will give a boost to ministers worried that the proportion of young people outside work, education and training is still one of the highest in Europe at 13%.
Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, said: “This is a crisis of having nearly 1 million young people out of work. “The evidence is absolutely clear, what we need is good quality employment support, we need more good training places and we need a strong growing economy with more vacancies,” he said.
Ben Harrison, head of the Work Foundation at Lancaster University, said it would be “a mistake to assume” the fall in Neets in the last quarter marked a turning point.
“There are more young people looking for work now than there were a year ago but they are doing so at a particularly challenging time to make their first foray into the labour market,” he said. “The Work Foundation research shows that the number of ‘starter’ jobs available to those entering work for the first time has fallen by 49 per cent in the last decade, meaning there is only one starter vacancy for every three Neet young people nationally.”
Jobs market challenges for young people
The quickest and easiest approach to stimulate the jobs market for young people was to ‘lower the cost of employment’ to create jobs for young people, said Allen Simpson, chief executive of UKHospitality.
But recent data has revealed that companies do not want to take on young people, despite official figures showing the economy has grown in the past year and firm profits are still strong.
Some analysts have attributed the use of artificial intelligence in some businesses to handle duties normally allocated for entry-level labour. They have also pointed to the increase in incidence of mental illness among young people, after periods of isolation and time out from education during the Covid-19 pandemic.
A research this week by the Work Foundation revealed that more than a third of firms (36%) have cut the amount of entry level employment offered to 16-24 year olds in the past 12 months.
Government response to youth unemployment
But the 30,000 decline in the number of Neets in the latest three-month numbers will be welcomed by the work and pensions minister Pat McFadden, who last week said fighting youth unemployment was a “national cause”.
The government has asked the former health minister Alan Milburn to carry out a wide-ranging assessment of education, training and employment services for young people. His proposals are due to be published in the autumn.
The Neet results “highlight why we are prioritising youth inactivity,” McFadden said. He said: “We’re committed to halting the youth unemployment crisis, which has been a slow-moving crisis, with the number of Neets rising by 248,000 between 2021 and 2024. The government was putting £2.5bn into “helping to create nearly one million opportunities to earn or learn”, he said.
Male and female Neet figures
The ONS stated the annual rise of 30,000 was mostly among young men, with an increase of 25,000 on the year. It said the entire number of Neet young people was made up of 530,000 men and 451,000 women.