UK faces youth jobs crisis as number of ‘neets’ rises to almost 1m

One in eight young people in the UK are now out of employment, education or training, at a time when Britain’s jobs market is cooling. Photograph: Windmill Images/Alamy

Experts say the UK faces a youth jobs crisis after a rise in the number of young people not in education, employment or training (neets) to almost a million, the highest level in more than a decade.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show there were about 987,000 young people aged 16 to 24 who were neets in October to December last year, up from 877,000 in the fourth quarter of 2023 and the highest level since 2013.