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The number of young people in the UK who are neither working nor learning has dipped back below one million, offering an encouraging shift after several years in which more 16- to 24-year-olds have become detached from work and education.
Figures published by the Office for National Statistics on 27 August estimated that 981,000 young people were not in education, employment or training – commonly described as NEET – between April and June this year, down by 30,000 on the previous three months. The proportion fell from 13.5% to 13%, although it remains slightly higher than a year earlier and the ONS has cautioned against drawing firm conclusions from a single quarter.
Most of the improvement came among young people classed as economically inactive – those who are neither working nor actively looking for work – whose numbers fell by 28,000. The number of unemployed young people who were NEET fell by only 2,000.
