00:00According to a government-backed review, more than one in eight young people is now outside education, work or training,
00:09and that could rise to one in six within five years.
00:12Beyond that warning is a concern that more teenagers and young adults are not just missing a first job,
00:18but becoming cut off from the normal routes into work, skills and adult life.
00:24NEAT's defined as those between 16 and 24 who are not in education, employment or training.
00:31And so what are they doing? Nothing in effect.
00:34So presumably on benefits, probably living at home.
00:38It's not a good situation. I mean, we're up to sort of a million already.
00:42And this is, dare I say, potentially a lost generation, because of course, if you don't get the work ethic
00:48and qualifications in earlier life,
00:50then, of course, it's going to be much more difficult in sort of later life.
00:53Of course, as we know, benefits or the bill for benefits is going up.
00:57So, of course, if these people sort of go through the whole system never working,
01:00which is a sort of potential sort of consequence of sort of being in the situation that they are at
01:04the moment,
01:05then, of course, it's devastating for them and all those around them.
01:08The review warns the number could reach 1.25 million by the early 2030s if current trends continue.
01:16It says young people with poor health, lower qualifications, special educational needs, unstable housing or weaker family support can face
01:26much steeper barriers.
01:27Ministers say the government is already working on earlier support, better work experience and stronger routes to employment.
01:35But the challenge is wider than Whitehall.
01:37Employers, schools, colleges, councils, health services and job centres all have a part to play
01:44if young people are to be reached before they fall further away.
01:48So, clearly, there is a sort of failure.
01:51It's a failure of the system.
01:52But, of course, it's a sort of a demonstration how much more difficult things have got.
01:57Now, of course, I know we've had unemployment amongst young people in the past.
02:00And, of course, lots of sort of government effort has gone into sort of to curing that or trying to
02:04find resolution.
02:05But the fact that, you know, we're in the year 2026 and we've still got this problem, it's endemic, as
02:10I say, as a sort of a wider sort of malaise that the current government are trying to get hold
02:15of.
02:15But it's difficult because, of course, the winds have changed and the whole problem of the world economy is getting
02:23much tougher.
02:23And, of course, these are sort of the people who are sort of immediate victims.
02:27But, you know, let's face it, on a sort of personal level, it's a human tragedy for the individuals because,
02:32of course, as I say, that, you know,
02:33they're not going to be able to look forward to the earnings that they might otherwise enjoy with decent qualifications
02:39and early employment and indeed some sort of training.
02:42And, of course, that affects them in terms of the abuses by homes and the families they have and so
02:46on and so forth.
02:47The latest official figures estimate more than 1 million people aged 16 to 24 are not in education, employment or
02:55training.
02:56That includes young people who are unemployed and looking for work, but also a larger group who are economically inactive,
03:03meaning they are not currently seeking a job.
03:06The review says the pattern has changed.
03:08It argues the problem is no longer just short-term youth unemployment, but the risk of long-term detachment.
03:15Poor mental and physical health, persistent absence from school, fewer entry-level jobs and weaker routes into training are all
03:24identified as pressures.
03:26Gosh, it's really difficult to know what the solution is.
03:30I mean, what we need is more decent jobs.
03:33They don't necessarily have to be sort of particularly high-paying in the first instance, but something that gets people
03:38into sort of the workplace.
03:39Now, of course, I've seen in my lifetime that, you know, when I was growing up, you know, getting a
03:43sort of a paper round, for instance, or a Saturday job, yeah, it was pretty easy.
03:47And, of course, it's very difficult because those jobs don't tend to exist.
03:49And, indeed, the sort of the entry-level jobs do not exist in the way that they once did.
03:53Indeed, combine that with the sort of the recent sort of reports that something like a third of sort of
03:58graduates says that they didn't realise that they'd be stacking up all this debt and getting chronifications,
04:03which doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to end up in graduate-level jobs.
04:07But, of course, what that means if the sort of graduates are taking entry-level jobs, where do these people
04:11go?
04:11And, indeed, the sort of the big fear is that AI is going to come along and it's going to
04:15take, for instance, if we look at sort of van drivers, for instance,
04:19or those that deliver packages that we sort of buy online to our doorsteps, if that were to sort of
04:24to become part of the AI revolution,
04:26which, of course, is not beyond the realms of possibility, what happens to those people who sort of currently drive
04:31vans?
04:31Where do they go? So it's a problem which is only going to get worse.
04:34And the difficulty is that sort of it requires radical action, but radical action requires money and some creative thinking.
04:41But this is difficult and there are no easy solutions.
04:45And I'm not suggesting that any politician that says it is easy, and I don't think they do, is probably
04:49fooling themselves and the sort of the general public.
04:52The question now is whether support can reach young people early enough.
04:56The review says the longer someone is outside educational work, the harder it can be to return.
05:03For communities in our part of the world, this is about future skills, local jobs, public services and the confidence
05:10of a generation trying to start an adult life.
05:14The survey says...
05:14To the Board of Education
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