When Labour won the General Election in 2024, nearly a million young people in this country were already not in employment, education or training (NEET).
Being NEET has a huge, often lifelong, impact on young people. Ensuring all youngsters have access to the best opportunities is something I am deeply passionate about and I believe this situation simply must not be allowed to continue.
The recently published Milburn Review laid out why the current system is failing a generation, detailing how the first rung of the career ladder has thinned and for too many young people is now out of reach.
84 per cent of NEET young people want a job or training but are not getting the support they need. It’s clear that significant parts of our education, economic and employment systems are incapable of delivering that.
As the Milburn Review warns, our country faces a “generational fault line” unless it confronts this failure head-on.
Entry-level jobs have long been in sharp decline, with 1.6m fewer low-and medium-skilled jobs in the economy. Vacancies in hospitality have halved in the last four years alone. Saturday jobs have long been in freefall and apprenticeship starts among young people have fallen by 35% over the last decade.
Action has already been taken to start reversing this decline with a major youth employment drive backed by £1bn from the UK Labour government to help create 200,000 jobs for young people, alongside the biggest transformation of apprenticeships in a decade.
It is a positive start but far more need to be done if we are really to get to grips with the scourge of youth unemployment and inactivity.
Only radical reform of our public services and our employment support system, coupled with a complete change of mindset in the way we view and develop young people will now suffice.