More than one million young people are not in work, education or training (Neet), new figures have shown, reaching its highest level in more than 12 years.
In new data published on Thursday, the Office for National Statistics said the number of Neets increased to a post-pandemic high of 1.01 million in the three months from January to March.
This is an increase of 89,000 on the previous year and 55,000 on the previous economic quarter.
Elise Rohan, head of labour market output at the ONS, said the increase “was driven by greater numbers of young people no longer looking for work.”
It came as Alan Milburn, the former Labour health secretary who is leading a review of the issue for the government, warned that Britain is “at risk of a lost generation” if ministers fail to urgently tackle youth unemployment.
In his interim report, Mr Milburn will warn that without urgent action, the number of young people who are neet – not in education, employment, or training – will rise from 1 in 8 to 1 in 6 young people by 2031, affecting 1.25 million young people and creating a “generational fault line”.
Speaking on Thursday, he warned that the problem is “much worse” than he initially thought and called for a cross-party effort to find a solution.
Warning that the first rung of the career ladder has “thinned”, the review found first jobs or work experience is often now out of reach for many young people, keeping them in a “hopeless Catch-22”.
Speaking about the latest data, Ms Rohan said: “The number of young people not in employment, education or training rose above one million in the first quarter of 2026, to its highest level in more than 12 years. This was driven by greater numbers of young people no longer looking for work.”
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