The number of young people aged 16-24 who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) has risen by 195,000 over the past two years to reach 940,000. The most common reason for being NEET is unemployment, but the largest increase in recent decades has been amongst those inactive due to disability and ill-health, according to the latest analysis from the Resolution Foundation.
False Starts – produced with the support of the Health Foundation – confirms trends present in the Labour Force Survey using administrative data, to show that the number of young people who are NEET is on track to hit one million for the first time since the aftermath of the financial crisis (when it peaked at 1.2 million in 2012).
The new analysis reveals that the demographic makeup of NEETs, and their reasons for being so, have noticeably shifted in recent years.
The biggest changes have occurred among young women. Back in 2005, half of all young women who were NEET were out of work due to family caring responsibilities. By 2025, this had fallen to just one-in-five NEET young women. This means that unemployment is now the biggest single reason for being NEET among both men (47 per cent) and women (32 per cent). As a result, young men are now marginally more likely to be NEET (13 per cent) than young women (12 per cent), having been less likely to be NEET back in 2005 (12 and 16 per cent respectively).
Increased incidences of disability and ill-health are the most prevalent reason for the growth in NEETs among both men and women. The proportion of NEET young people who are inactive due to sickness or disability has more than doubled since 2005, with over one-in-four NEETs today inactive for this reason (29 per cent for men and 26 per cent for women).
The report warns that young people who are NEET today are increasingly detached from the workplace. 60 per cent of NEETs today have never worked, up from 42 per cent in 2005.
The report also debunks some common perceptions about young people who are NEET.
First, the claim that all NEETs are on benefits is wide of the mark. In fact, nearly half (44 per cent) of all NEETs aged 16-24 do not engage with the benefit system at all.
Second, in contrast to the popular narrative that AI is depressing graduate labour market participation and driving up NEETs, it is in fact those with low qualifications that dominate the NEET population. Young people aged 22-24 whose highest qualification is at GCSE level or below are three-times more likely to be NEET than graduates (30 and 9 per cent respectively).
Third, this is not solely a young adult problem, with the 2013 increase in the participation age in education failing to reduce the number of 16-17 year old NEETs over the past decade.