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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The writer is a former adviser to Sir Keir Starmer and Sir Tony Blair and a former headteacher
It’s easy to make big statements about the tragedy of a million young people in the UK not in education, employment or training (known as Neets).
But it’s a very different matter to listen properly to young people who may be traumatised, ground down, despairing or just lost. The girl parcelled out to 11 sets of foster parents in 18 months. The boy bullied at school for more than a decade. The carer living moment by moment in constant fear her sister will kill herself. And the many young people who have applied to hundreds of jobs, without a single sign of acknowledgment from employers.
For the last few months I have been travelling the UK listening to Neets with my co-author Shuab Gamote as part of Alan Milburn’s government review. Today we publish our report: Inside the Mind of a Young Neet. The vast majority of the more than 400 young people we met were desperate to work, seeing it as good for their financial security and wellbeing. But they faced a range of barriers.
We drew up a traffic light system based on how far the young person was from work. Red indicates those faced with complex challenges, often coping with severe mental ill-health, trauma and unstable housing. Some are recent care leavers. Many are exhausted before a conversation about employment even begins. They want a job but first need some semblance of security.
Amber indicates those who are close to work, but stuck behind specific and often practical barriers. They may have missed out on an English or Maths GCSE by a single grade. They may need a qualification, a reference, a placement, an interview or someone to explain which route leads where. They often have ambition but may need to build momentum or “soft skills”.
Green describes young people who, by any reasonable measure, are ready. Many have qualifications, experience and a clear idea of what they want to do. But they are still not getting in. This group is caught in what we call the rejection economy. For this group, the barrier is access and advice. One young person in Suffolk described being “stuck in a vicious loop”: needing a driving licence to work and needing work to afford driving lessons.
Most told us they had done no work experience while at school and no paid work as a young adult. By contrast, when we visited the Netherlands for the report, the young people we met were all doing some paid work at 15 and 16 — and proudly told us of the many skills and personal qualities they had developed. Evidence suggests that young people who have had four or more meaningful experiences with work are 86 per cent less likely to become Neet.
Young people in the UK described how hard it is to get into an entry-level job. So we brought together a small group of young Neets and employers to hear each other’s perspective.
Young people felt that employers hired for experience, not potential. The employers said it was the opposite. Young people said they found application processes convoluted, with multiple rounds, penalising those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Employers said it was the only way of selecting the right candidate. They admitted that some descriptions for entry-level jobs implied that applicants had to be the finished article when that wasn’t the case.
Employers were also sympathetic to the plight of this generation as entry-level jobs are succumbing to AI. Their message was to keep going, don’t take advice from TikTok and be authentic.
Young people are asking for more opportunities; more flexibility in the hiring process and more guidance at pivotal moments in their lives. Most of all, they want employers to see them as an individual with potential and to give them the chance to flourish. Getting a foothold in the workplace should not be the harsh, complicated and dispiriting ordeal they currently find it.
