Rise in number of young people classed as 'long-term' Neets

Analysis of official government youth unemployment data has found that 811,000 of the two million 16- to 24-year-olds who spent time Neet in 2016 were out of work, college or training for more than 12 months.

This is an increase of 12 per cent on figures for the previous year which showed 714,000 young people were Neet for this length of time.

The findings form part of the 2017 Youth Jobs Index, put together by Impetus - Private Equity Foundation. The organisation is calling on the government to do more to address long-term unemployment among young people.

It is particularly concerned that the young people who are long-term Neet are being neglected, suggesting that the government is satisified with the situation on the basis that the overall number of young people classified as Neet fell from 2.1 million in 2015 to two million in 2016.

"We've just come away from an election where the youth vote counted, but our findings show there are still crippling numbers of young people not in education, employment or training who aren't being counted at all," Impetus-PEF chief executive Andy Ratcliffe said.

"The headline drop in the number of young people who are neither earning or learning next to the increase in the numbers who are enduring this for over a year, confirms that we have a structural problem in Britain that has not gone away."

Recommendations put forward by Impetus-PEF include ensuring that compulsory skills training and work placements, introduced for young people in April, are tailored to each individual's needs and include on-going support once they have secured work or a training place. 

Tony Wilson, policy and research director at the Learning and Work Institute, which was involved with the research, added: "Too many young people experience long periods or several spells of being outside of learning and work.

"We need to ensure that our education and employment systems better support these groups. This means ensuring that they are better able to identify them - not relying on snapshot numbers which can encourage short-term programmes and responses, but focusing on longer term solutions."