Kate MCGOUGH
Education producer, BBC News
BBC / and Nelson
More young people were not in work, education or training at the end of 2024 at any time in the past 11 years, suggest new data.
The latest figures from the National Statistics Office (ONS) suggest that 987,000 children aged 16-24 were not in work, education or training between October and December.
This represents 13.4%, or almost one in seven people in this age group.
The government claims that each young person will have the possibility of “winning or learning” as part of their youth guarantee initiative.
Young men are more likely than young women not to be in education, employment or training (NEET), according to the latest ONS estimates.
In October to December 2024, approximately 14.4% of all men of 16-24 male were Neet, against 12.3% of women.
But the figures overall also increase.
The figure from 987,000 from October to December 2024 increased by 110,000 in one year.
Young people who are not in employment can be unemployed – which means that they are actively looking for work – or defined as economically inactive – which means that they are not looking for work.
Most young people who are Neet fall into the economically inactive category, with 595,000 economically inactive young people in the last statistics, against 392,000 unemployed.
Those who work with young people Neet say that poor mental health is one of the main problems preventing them from finding work.
In 2023, almost one in five (19.5%) had a mental health condition, according to the latest annual figures for the education department.
King’s Trust’s charitable organization, founded by King Charles III when he was Prince of Wales to help young people find a job or start a business, published his annual investigation on the youth index on Thursday.
Most of the 4,285 years of 16-25 years old across the United Kingdom interviewed in November and December felt worried about their future on a daily basis.
And 460s that were Neet:
Almost one in three (31%) said they would like to work, but poor mental health prevented him from both (50%) said that unemployment made them feel desperate about the most future
In a community center in Toxteth, Liverpool, Niall, 22, told BBC News that he had seen many of his friends “throw their potential”, as he had aged 16 to 20.
BBC / KATE MCGOUGH
Niall says that more centers should be available to connect young people to those who help their community
He says he became Neet after entering the “bad people”.
“I would go out to party or take drugs, spend time taking drugs to try to escape. So obviously, I had to get off from all this,” he said.
He thinks that there are not enough community centers for young people and that they often grow with others who do not “do the right things”.
Niall is in universal credit while he is looking for work, but says he was inspired by those who helped him to become a youth worker himself.
“I feel good in the future now. I would not like to come back to this lifestyle now because I know what is coming from it. I have put so much work in me now that I want to build something.”
Jack Rice has been a youth worker for three years, providing support to Knowsley who abandoned school or college.
BBC / KATE MCGOUGH
The youth worker Jack (center) often speaks to young people in the streets of Knowsley
He organized a football session for young people in the region to play every Monday, no matter what’s going on at home or at school.
It is a useful escape for people like Luke, 16, who says he regularly asks for work but has trouble setting foot in the door.
He wants to be a roofer and asks for “charges” of jobs, he says, but thinks that his young age pushes potential employers by giving him a chance.
He also asks for learning and says he wants to start a college course next year if it does not work.
BBC / KATE MCGOUGH
The BBC spoke to Luke, 16, during a football evening organized by young locals
Gill Bainbridge, who has been director general of the Merseyside Youth Association for more than a decade, says that the young people with whom they work are resilient and ambitious, but are faced with a range of increasingly complex questions which are obstacles to work.
His charity supports more than 5,000 young people each year to acquire life skills and qualifications.
She says that around half of the young people in their program of talent matches, intended to put young people from the Neet to work or to training, have special educational needs.
“You could have a young person who is on the autism spectrum, who also had trouble with his mental health, who therefore has weak confidence,” she said.
“They then did not succeed in school, so it becomes a set of multilayer problems on which you really need to work with a long -term young person to start to untangle and remedy step by step.”
BBC / KATE MCGOUGH
Gill Bainbridge has directed the Merseyside Youth Association for over 10 years
The work carried out by the charitable organization was crucial for Harry, 23, who has now been released on the other side of three years as a young Neet in which he was widely confined to his room.
He said that the descending spiral of his mental health during Covid, after finishing his levels in 2019, left him “trapped”.
“I didn’t know who to talk to,” he said.
“It was so much easier, with the severity of my mental health, simply rot in this cycle and make fun of my room.”
BBC / KATE MCGOUGH
Harry says that his mental health was extremely weak when his mother brought him to the Merseyside Youth Association
Harry obtained free individual advice through the Merseyside Youth Association, as well as a mentor that put him on courses that helped him acquire life skills, qualifications and friends.
Two years later, Harry has his dream job for a music publishing company. He says that the support he has obtained from the charitable organization saved his life.
Dr. Andrea Barry, principal economist of the Youth Futures Foundation for non -profit, says it is essential that the government can reach young people Neet who do not engage in its services.
“Unfortunately, young people who are not looking for work will not be in contact with the job center,” she said.
“There are important healing effects for young people when they are without work or long -term education. And it is also important that the government’s economic growth objectives have more young people at work and help develop the economy.”
The government recently softened some of the rules concerning learning for young people, but Dr. Barry would like to see them go further, with a guarantee that level 2 or 3 learning will be available for them.
She also says that more supported courses, as well as more support for schools and colleges to prepare young people for work, could help reduce the number of Neet.
A spokesperson for the Department of Labor and Pensions said they were “determined that no youngster lets themselves be left on behalf of”.
They added: “Our white work book Get Britain will transform the job centers and ensure that each young person has the possibility of winning or learning thanks to our youth guarantee, while we considerably broaden the support of mental health to young people.”
