David Willetts

Record numbers of young people are not in any form of education, employment or training (NEET), new official figures show. The latest figures from December last year show that 860,000 people aged 16-24 were not engaged in any positive activity. The figure has risen from 630,000 in 2000.

The recession, together with Government cuts to sixth forms, apprenticeships and further education college capital spending, means the problem is set to get worse in the next few months.

Responding to the figures, Shadow Innovation, Universities and Skills Secretary, David Willetts, said:

“If we had predicted in 1997 that youth unemployment and disengagement would have increased under Labour no one would have believed us. But the reality is that even in the boom years these problems were allowed to get worse. The tragedy now is that due to the recession and Government fiascos over capital and revenue funding for sixth formers and apprentices all these problems are going to be more acute over the next few months.”

“We have proposed a specific £100m NEETs fund to help young people, who may not have got on with conventional schooling, to engage with further training or employment. We need to improve these opportunities for vocational training before it’s too late.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

There are now 857,000 NEETs - the highest figure ever. The Government says that no comparable data on NEETs is available prior to 2000: the PQ answers states that ‘all the data necessary to produce [NEETs estimates} is not available on datasets prior to Quarter 2 2000′.

(DIUS Written Reply, answered Monday 6 April, tabled Tuesday 17 March, PQ 264433, not yet in Hansard.)

Recession hits young people with a 10 per cent rise in NEETs in one year. There are 75,000 more than a year ago, a rise of 10 per cent.

(DIUS Written Reply, answered Monday 6 April, tabled Tuesday 17 March, PQ 264433, not yet in Hansard.)

Increase in NEETs since 2000

Government cuts are set to make the problem worse. In the last six months, the Government has:

• Frozen building programmes at 144 further education colleges (DIUS, Press Release, 4 March 2009)
• Cut funding for every school sixth form and sixth form college in the country (LSC letter to schools and colleges, 30 March 2009)
• Put a cap on apprenticeship numbers (LSC letter to providers, 31 March 2009).
• Cut the increase in university places (HEFCE letter to Vice-Chancellors, October 2008).