‘Hopeless catch-22’ for young people with job opportunities in freefall

Employers are asking young people in the UK for experience they can’t get in a dire market for starter jobs – leading to a ‘hopeless catch-22’, a major new report has warned.

Former Health Secretary Alan Milburn said his investigation into the rising number of so-called NEETs – young people not in education, employment or training – has exposed a ‘moral crisis’.

The release of his report coincided with a release from the Office for National Statistics which showed the number of Brits aged between 16 and 24 who are NEET passed a million in the first quarter of this year.

This means 13.5% of young people in the UK hold the status, an increase of 1% from the same period in 2025.

According to forecasts in Milburn’s report, the NEET rate is set to rise above 16% within five years, meaning more than 1.25 million young people out of work, education and training.

Milburn highlighted two major drivers of this situation: a crisis in young people’s health, and a crisis in entry-level work.

Vacancies in hospitality, where many young Brits find their first paying job, have halved in the past four years while roles that were once relatively straightforward – such as customer service – have grown more demanding, the report warns.

Milburn told a press conference this morning: ‘The first rung of the career ladder has thinned. For too many young people it is simply out of reach.

‘That places them in a hopeless catch-22 position where employers ask for work experience, but opportunities for young people to gain it have either narrowed or have gone.’

This is likely to only worsen when the nascent AI revolution begins to take full effect, he added.

Meanwhile, the report also highlights that the proportion of people saying they are NEET due to a work-limiting health condition has risen by 70%.

Milburn said: ‘For the first time in perhaps two centuries, changes in health – especially mental health – are impeding economic growth and causing a contraction in the supply of labour.

‘Poor health reduces participation; reduced participation worsens health; worsening health makes return to work harder still. This is the vicious cycle that simply isn’t being broken.’

He said he did not accept that mental health was ‘simply an excuse’ used by young people who did not want to work, saying distress is ‘real, and it is rising’.

The ex-minister continued: ‘I do not accept either that the answer is to tell young people who are struggling simply to try harder.

‘The young people I have met are trying – applying for dozens, sometimes hundreds of jobs, hearing nothing back. And it is silence that does not just dent confidence, it kills hope.’

Today’s report is the first of two, and focuses on the ‘diagnosis’ of what has put the UK in its current situation – which is considerably worse than other top European nations.

The second part of Milburn’s investigation, focusing on recommendations and possible solutions, will follow later this year.

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