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And who are the NEETS, you may ask? They are the 16-24 year olds not currently in education, employment or training. An astonishing, perhaps frightening, accompanying statistic to that description, is that around one in eight young people are currently NEETS with the overall figure in Britain reaching 957,000 earlier this year. Even more daunting is the related fact that researchers can now predict whether a child as young as three will end up as a Neet at the age of 16, once factors such as health, geography, parenting and socio-economic background are considered. Another shock to the system is to discover that the Neet demographic is not new, despite the considerable publicity being accorded them at present. The rate has not fallen below 10 per cent for three decades.
A New
Statesman article [1-7 May] on NEETS which aroused my ignorance, suggests
that the nature of Neet hood has changed: those included are now more likely to be
men, rather than young women whose babies keep them out of work or education,
and they are less likely to be looking for work. Indeed, 61% of NEETS are not
looking for work at all because of personal problems or health-related issues
such as mental illness, learning difficulties and neuro-divergence. Britain
spends more now on health and disability benefits than it does on
apprenticeships. The Labour Government has just announced that it will pay
employers £3,000 per Neet hire while making it simultaneously more expensive to
recruit young people by raising the minimum wage. Employers complain that the
anticipated reduced rate of immigration [a Govt. goal] will contribute to
skills shortages while one in eight of Britain’s teenagers represent nearly a
million-strong missing workforce.
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| Alan Milburn; reviewing the NEETS problems. |
Alan Milburn, a former Labour Health Secretary and a Blairite, has been recently appointed to review the NEETS problem. Milburn feels that blaming the young people themselves is pointless and wrong; they are a consequence of the system itself, and he is sure that there something in life in contemporary society which is creating a more anxious generation. The Governmental response so far to NEET demands, has been to provide a rising benefits bill which is acknowledged as unsustainable. Milburn himself was a council estate boy brought up by a single mother in Newcastle, and he remembers his own early conviction that he would do better in life than his mother’s generation. And as Millburn’s example suggests, NEETS do not present a new problem; there have been 30 years of policy intervention, good intentions and public handwringing about it, but no remedy has emerged to deal effectively with it. Milburn believes a wide-ranging societal re-set is needed, beginning with the early years in school, through skills development into health and welfare. The approach must change, and society focus its intentions on investing in future generations. Controversially, Milburn would scrap the pension lock. Pensioners account for 55% of the welfare bill which Labour failed to reduce when it cut disability benefits in 2025. Thus, one section of society, pensioners over 65, have the guarantee of the triple lock while youngsters have no such luxury.
[Definition
of the Triple Lock
The Triple Lock is an agreed political choice made on behalf of society. To modify the present system would be challenging; there are other significant possible changes awaiting in the queue, such as the reform of sickness and disability benefits again or perhaps reversing the commitment to bring the 18-20-year-old minimum wage rate up to adult levels. To affect such changes will require extensive, difficult public debate and Milburn is rooting for optimism in future goals with the brave intention of harmonising Governmental action with public demand even though public demand comes with many voices.
Dr Howard Williamson,
who led the 1993 research on NEETS, focusing on 16- and 17-year-old boys ‘
doing
nothing’ with their lives and who advised Tony Blair’s Social Exclusion
Unit, asserts that the labour market is changing and reminds us that NEETS, in the past,
classically got working class jobs which are no longer available. The future lies in a technologically-driven market with less room for such young people. Milburn
focuses on employers who, in the past, have been easily able to import already
trained, cheap foreign labour. Can’t NEETS simply take on jobs formerly farmed
out to this foreign labour? The difficult answer lies chiefly in the cost.
NEETS are simply more expensive than foreign labour and it is doubtful that the
private sector has the resources or capacity to soak up the cost or the numbers
involved.
Dr Howard Williamson led 1993
research on NEETS. Advised Tony Blair's
Social Exclusion Unit.
This NEET
saga touches on so many of modern British compulsions and anxieties; the mental health and ADHD
epidemic: welfare spending: intergenerational unfairness: the supposed social
contract. There have been several Govt. promises, or publicly announced
intentions, over the years, to ‘level up’, build a ‘Northern
powerhouse’, or spark a ‘national renewal’. But there remain hugely
deprived areas like Blackpool, Hartlepool and Redcar with families, not just NEETS, struggling to make good lives against all the odds. Against this backdrop, NEETS can be seen, less as a lost generation, more as representatives of families straining to make ends meet in a hostile world of neglected streets, and jobs, where entry-level vacancies are vanishing; opportunities in hospitality and retail are falling; and understaffed sectors like care are chronically underpaid.
Abandoned factory in deprived area.
A neglected street in Croydon where discarded trash
is a subtle inviitation for more to be added.
A symbol of a depressing social and educational problem
which could be solved with designated finance, technological education
and determination.
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