More than a quarter of young people aged 15-29 are neither working nor pursuing education or training in nearly 250 districts, pointing to a significant gap in the utilisation of India’s young workforce, according to the first-ever district-level Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for 2025 released by the statistics ministry on Friday, according to Shiva Rajora's Times of India report.
The problem is particularly pronounced across northern India. In Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and West Bengal, around two-thirds of districts have nearly a quarter of their young population classified as NEET — not in employment, education or training.