Commenting on today's ONS release of NEET statistics, Ian Brinkley, chief economist at Lancaster University’s Work Foundation said:
“It is good news that the overall number of young people who are NEET are falling. However, this reflects progress among those young people who were already actively looking for work and are likely to be the most employable.”
“There has been no progress among the 500,000 under 25s who are classified as economically inactive and have dropped out of the labour market. This group will include some of the most disadvantaged and those in greatest danger of sustaining lasting damage to their future employment prospects. Much more needs to be done to help these individuals back into the labour market and to stop young people leaving school ending up in this category. Building on the existing commitments to increase the number and quality of apprenticeships, and improving the school-to-work transition must be a priority for this and the next government.”
