The Week's briefing on young people who are not in education, employment or training (Neets) makes for gloomy reading. Around a million 16 to 24-year-olds, one in eight of the age group, are Neet, and Alan Milburn's review for the government describes it as an urgent national crisis that could create a 'lost generation'. His diagnosis is a perfect storm: an education system that lets vulnerable kids slip through, a welfare system that acts as a gateway to life on benefits, weaker entry-level jobs and, above all, a rise in mental ill-health.
This looks bad, but we've been here before
The latest official figures show 981,000 young people were Neet in April to June 2026, 13.0% of the age group, which was actually down on the previous quarter. The same Commons Library briefing notes the rate peaked at 16.9% back in 2011 after the financial crash.
So it isn't unprecedented. Nobody called the 2011 cohort a lost generation for very long, largely because the economy recovered and they found work. That suggests the demand side of the labour market matters at least as much as young people's health or the benefits system.
The jobs have gone
According to the Youth Futures Foundation, the number of unemployed people per vacancy has more than doubled since 2022, and the sectors that traditionally hire the young have been hit particularly hard.
Retail is contracting, hospitality is being squeezed by higher national insurance and minimum wage costs, and social care is badly paid. Add in AI and automated recruitment systems swallowing applications without a reply, and graduates bumping down into jobs that used to go to school-leavers, and it's not hard to see why an 18-year-old with a handful of GCSEs is struggling.
Health, welfare and a politically handy narrative
I don't doubt that mental ill-health among young people has risen, and the Youth Futures data shows the number who are Neet and inactive due to long-term sickness doubled between 2021 and 2026. But the framing that the welfare system 'certifies' poor mental health and hands out a lifestyle outside work is a politically loaded one.
The briefing itself notes that Neets offer Burnham's government a chance to show it's serious about cutting welfare. That should make us a little wary. It's far easier to blame benefits and diagnosis culture than to admit that government policy has made hiring young people more expensive while the entry-level jobs have been disappearing anyway.
The Dutch comparison is instructive, but not in the way it's usually used. The Netherlands does place more demands on young benefit claimants, but it also has a far stronger vocational system, with far more young people on vocational courses. Conditionality without the pathways is just punishment.
Final thoughts
I think Milburn is right to call this a waste of talent, and right that vocational training in Britain has been neglected for decades. But the 'lost generation' language risks turning a labour market problem into a moral panic about fragile young people and soft welfare.
If the government wants to fix this, the cheapest and quickest lever it has is making it less costly to take a chance on a young worker. Cutting their benefits without giving them somewhere to go just moves the problem from one budget line to another.