Youth unemployment blights lives, says TUC

TUC responds to Office of National Statistics (ONS) figures on NEETs

29 May 2024| News

Figures published last Thursday by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show that there were 900,000 young people (aged 16 to 24) in the UK who were not in education, employment or training (NEET) in January to March 2024 – up from 812,000 in January to March 2023, an increase to 12.6% of all young people.

In adddition to the headline figutre, the main points from the ONS show that:

The percentage of all young people who were NEET in January to March 2024 was estimated at 12.6%, up 1.1 percentage points on January to March 2023.
The increase in the number of young people who were NEET was driven by young men, with an increase of 99,000 on the year to 506,000 (January to March 2023).
The number of young people who were NEET and unemployed in January to March 2024 was estimated to be 320,000, an increase of 11,000 on the year (January to March 2023).
The number of young men aged 16 to 24 years who were NEET and unemployed increased by 17,000 on the year to 203,000.
There were an estimated 580,000 young people in the UK who were NEET and economically inactive, an increase on the year of 77,000.

You can read the full ONS report here.

Commenting on the figures, TUC general secretary, Paul Nowak, said:

“Being unemployed at the start of your career has a lifelong impact – and hits your earnings for the rest of your life.

The UK must never allow mass youth unemployment to take hold and blight lives. We need real help now to get young people the chance to develop their skills and build their experience of paid work.

And we need action to end the reliance on insecure precarious work that particularly affects young workers – every job should be a good job. The general election is a vital chance to reset our labour market.

The New Deal for Working People will be a game changer for young workers. It will ban zero-hours contracts. It will end the use of fire and rehire to water down pay and conditions. And it will protect young workers from being unfairly sacked from their first day in the job.”