Young People Not In Education, Employment Or Training (NEET), UK - May 2024

27th May 2024

Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates have been reweighted for periods from July to September 2022 onwards; a discontinuity has been introduced at this point, so comparisons before this point are not possible.

Increased volatility of LFS estimates, resulting from smaller achieved sample sizes, means that estimates of quarterly change should be treated with additional caution.

There was an increase in the number of young people aged 16 to 24 years not in education, employment or training (NEET) in January to March 2024, with the total currently estimated to be 900,000, up from 812,000 in January to March 2023.

The percentage of all young people who were NEET in January to March 2024 was estimated at 12.6%, up 1.1 percentage points on January to March 2023.

The increase in the number of young people who were NEET was driven by young men, with an increase of 99,000 on the year to 506,000 (January to March 2023).

The number of young people who were NEET and unemployed in January to March 2024 was estimated to be 320,000, an increase of 11,000 on the year (January to March 2023).

The number of young men aged 16 to 24 years who were NEET and unemployed increased by 17,000 on the year to 203,000.

There were an estimated 580,000 young people in the UK who were NEET and economically inactive, an increase on the year of 77,000.

Total young people who were not in education, employment or training
An estimated 12.6% of all people aged 16 to 24 years in the UK were not in education, employment or training (NEET) in January to March 2024. This is up 1.1 percentage points compared with January to March 2023, and up 0.6 percentage points on the previous quarter.

An estimated 13.9% of young men (up 2.6 percentage points on the year) and 11.2% of young women (down 0.5 percentage points on the year) were NEET. There were 900,000 young people who were NEET in total, an increase of 87,000 on the year. This increase was driven by young men. Of the total number of young people who were NEET, 506,000 were young men and 394,000 were young women.

The total number of people aged 18 to 24 years who were NEET was 829,000, up 74,000 on the previous year.

The percentage of those aged 18 to 24 years who were NEET was 15.0%, which was up 1.2 percentage points on the year, and up 0.8 percentage points on the quarter.

Unemployed young people who were not in education, employment or training
There were an estimated 320,000 NEET young people aged 16 to 24 years who were unemployed in January to March 2024, up 11,000 from January to March 2023 and up 27,000 from October to December 2023. An estimated 203,000 of these unemployed NEETS were young men, and 116,000 were young women. The number of NEET men aged 16 to 24 years who were unemployed increased by 17,000 on the year from January to March 2023, while the number of NEET women aged 16 to 24 years who were unemployed decreased by 6,000 on the year from January to March 2023.

Economically inactive young people who were not in education, employment or training
In January to March 2024, there were an estimated 580,000 economically inactive young people aged 16 to 24 years who were NEET. This was up 77,000 on the year from January to March 2023, and up 21,000 on the quarter from October to December 2023. The number of young men who were NEET and economically inactive was 302,000 and the corresponding number of young women was 278,000. This was driven by young men who saw an increase of 82,000 on the year from January to March 2023, while young women aged 16 to 24 years who were NEET and economically inactive decreased by 5,000 on the year from January to March 2023.

Read the full article with links to more data HERE