Experts have warned that the UK is facing a youth jobs crisis after a rise in the number of young people not in education, employment or training (Neet) to almost 1 million, the highest level in more than a decade.
The figures mean one in eight young people across the country are now out of employment, education or training, at a time when Britain’s jobs market is cooling as employers grapple with planned tax increases from the government, elevated borrowing costs and sluggish economic growth.
Labour announced plans late last year for a “youth guarantee” to ensure every young person has access to education or training to help them find a job, including through a programme of “youth trailblazer” schemes in eight English mayoral authorities, which is due to launch this spring.
Ben Harrison, the director of the Work Foundation at Lancaster University, said large numbers of young people were actively looking for work but struggling to find it, with 392,000 unemployed – of which 64% are young men.
Highlighting a stark rise in young people falling out of the jobs market since the height of the Covid pandemic, the number of Neets has soared by more than a quarter of a million in the past three years.
