«A while back I met up with some youngish graduates from a good university. They told me that about half their friends are on benefits and not in work.»
These two quotes show clearly how uncompetitive they are, the first one is about the global wage for young STEM workers with a job in finance:
"I work as a sysadmin in a small financial organization in one of the economically deprived countries in Africa. Work is good and not too demanding but the only problem is the pay. I am a fairy experienced professional, I have about 2 years experience in systems administration and bachelor's degree in Computer Science. I get around $172 a month after subtracting employee taxes. Life here is not very expensive, living costs like rent, food and transport cost around $114 a month. It leaves me with just over $50 to spare. This is what most people are getting when they start off in any IT career by the way( sysadmin, developers etc...)."
The same workers doing much the same job in the UK are paid around the minimum UK wage that is 10 times more:
“At £25,300 ($32,110), the annual pay is typical for a graduate role. Come April next year, it will also be near the minimum wage. [...] A junior graphic designer (preferably with a degree and two years’ experience) can expect to earn £22,000, which will soon be below minimum wage."
In a competitive global job market UK wages do not need to fall all the way to the median global level but ideally they would be no more than 1/3 to 1/4 of what they are now, no higher than Malaysia for example.
But then cost-of-living would need also to fall by almost as much and this would blow up the housing market -- the fundamental problem of the UK is not merely that wages and salaries are 10 times the global market levels but the tension between that problem and the absolute political necessity to keep house prices booming as the whole economic and political system of the UK is based on rising house prices.
As demonstrated by house prices being flat for four years resulting in enormous upheavals in voting patterns.
Decline of traditional employment opportunities, AI, robotics, taxes on jobs and mental health worries are combining to make young adult unemployment structural rather than temporary. Increasing rates of structural youth umemployment carry significant consequences. I think we need to go way beyond supporting employability - which I fear will only have a modest marginal effect - to directly providing, via local leadership, paid 'public good' jobs (jobs that wouldnt otherwise exist, so little displacement effect) that provide a guaranteed pathway for pretty much all young people including for those with additional needs and disabilities. A wage of perhaps £5/hr for such jobs plus wrap around support would be costly, but could reset expectations, get more young people work-ready for the jobs that will exist e.g in the care sector, and avoid the high societal and individual cost of significant entrenched youth unemployment.
«Halve the jobs tax for people aged 21-24 [...] Set up “Get to work” [...] Create 100,000 more apprenticeships a year for 18-21 year olds [...] Replace the current sickness and disability benefits - ending PIP claims [...] Cut business rates on high street shops»
These are typical New Labour style policies largely based on the idea that there are plenty of jobs out there that the unemployed do not bother looking for or are over-taxed out of existence and they in the past were largely for show.
From a conservative point of view the reason for youth unemployment is that young british people are pricing themselves out of the job market:
* In the past 20 years total number of jobs has risen from 28m to 34m making it clear that there was no job shortage in the UK.
* In the global job market the typical wage is £1/hour and typical UK job seekers demand at least 10 times that, and potential employers feel exploited.
* Almost all of those extra 6m jobs have gone to global job market workers because they are far more competitive: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/buyout-boss-says-brexit-will-be-good-his-business-will-mean-30-cut-uk-wages-1602631 «One of the biggest names in European private equity said that Brexit will be good for his business, but will mean a 30% wage reduction for UK workers. [...] He added that EU immigration will be replaced with workers from the Indian subcontinent and Africa, willing to accept "substantially" lower pay.
* If young job seekers in the UK were willing to accept wages 10% lower than what african and indian global workers accept they would get jobs and at the same time immigration would stop. Also imagine how many "Middle England" families would hire 2-3 helpers if they cost £3-5 per hour, creating many millions of jobs.
From a conservative point of view the main issue is that young workers have fancy expectations of an affluent lifestyle where they sleep only 1 or 2 per room where most global workers are happy with sleeping 4 to 8 per room and want to eat "meal deals" during the day and microwave ready-meals in the evening instead of cooking and boxing and eating rice with potatoes or beans or margarine like global worker do.
As every conservative private person or business owner will keep telling you "it is so hard to find affordable help today".
Perhaps not including the "entrepreneurs" like the delivery drivers running around on their capital (bikes, scooters, vans). Perhaps also not including those hanging around parking lots waiting to be called up by cash-in-hand gangmasters? Those working cash-in-hand in Bradford garment makers?
Regardless of the exceptions from a conservative point of view the big deal is that the minimum wage is itself way too high, at least 10 times higher than the global job market wage level and this prices out of employment british workers of all ages.
An UK wage level closer to global job markets levels would not only eliminate mass immigration but would also bring back many jobs making flip-flops, baskets, plastic toys, t-shirts, socket extensions, etc. that are currently offshored.
There is a reason why New Labour created lower minimum wage levels for workers 16-17 (in 2004) and for workers 18-21 (in 1998-1999).
Our blogger's proposals extends the same logic to workers 21-24 to increase the competitiveness of all workers up to 24, but then why not acknowledge if they were extended to all workers and the minimum wage substantially lowered they would help all workers get more competitive?
Youth worklessness deserves serious attention. But “there is no mystery” is a remarkably confident conclusion from figures that do not establish what caused it.
One major omission is employers’ use of AI and automation to reduce recruitment. In March 2026, the Bank of England reported that businesses were meeting demand without additional hiring through these technologies. It specifically identified reduced early-career recruitment at some large professional-services firms as routine entry-level work shrinks.
Young people do not need to be sacked to be displaced. The vacancy they would have filled simply never appears. Employers can improve productivity while removing the opportunities through which beginners gain experience.
Higher employment costs can discourage hiring. But acknowledging that does not justify treating lower wages, weaker protections and benefit cuts as a sufficient response. Making young people cheaper cannot guarantee employers will hire them when technology allows those employers to operate with fewer staff.
The benefits argument also needs care: PIP supports disability-related costs and can be claimed while working. More PIP recipients does not automatically mean more people choosing benefits over employment.
None of this proves automation is the largest cause. Equally, your figures do not prove your preferred political explanation. A credible response must examine employers’ recruitment decisions and how productivity gains are shared—not simply demand more concessions from young people struggling to get their first opportunity.
The parity of esteem doctrine - which has tied public policy and funding commitments to the whims of a notoriously shaky branch of 'science' - is clearly in need of drastic reform and yet it is something we seem unwilling to countenance.
However, the effect you describe could be entirely explained by the increase in enrollment in higher education over the last two decades, which change the composition of the people who are not in education (who probably have now much lower skills and abilities than 20 years ago, since it's a lower share of the youth).
I think this composition effect is unlikely to explain the entire increase in inactivity and employment, but it has certainly a large effect.
You should also have posted percentage inactive / unemployed compared to the total 16-24 years old population, as well as percentage in education. That would have enabled to see the true trend, net of composition effect.
I reckon boris wave migration would have a big impact at the bottom end in London. Anecdotally there’s been a marked increase in people with subcontinental accents in public facing entry level positions these past few years.
Also laying the blame on recent Labour policy is quite dishonest when % unemployed/inactive rose 7% in 2 years of Conservative gov before them coming in, and 0.9% in last 2 years. I agree your argument around their policy *seems* coherent, but I don't think the data backs you up yet.
"Dishonest"? What about those job vacancy facts, all since Labour was elected? Ratcheting up (even further than the Tories, I admit) mininum wages, new (incredibly pro-union, pro-exisitng worker) employment laws, employers NI rises.
Read my message! I say the policy argument you quote seems coherent, but the actual data shows a steep rise under last two years of conservatives then a much shallower rise under Labour. So to strongly link to those changes, currently, is dishonest in my view.
Youth unemployment rate UK Vs Europe? Job vacancies by size of company? Making young workers so expensive to hire and so hard to fire is more than a "coherent" argument. These policies are inspired by a Labour Party (and civil servant policymakers) in cahoots with the big trade unions, notoriously anti-competitive organisations, quite as bad as monopoly firms. That recent Conservative governments were also hopeless isn't a defence.
And ... tossing "dishonest" around as a description of an argument is such ridiculously rhetorical way to debate.
I do agree with the general thrust of this piece, but I think your narrative around increasing % of worklessness in non-university young people is heavily confounded by the increasing numbers going to the university. This means that non-university cohort today has a very different make-up to early 90s.
The yuge increase has been since ‘21, during which time the cohort % in higher education has remained stable/ dipped a couple of pips (source, the bots so ymmv)
I’m afraid there’s also a piece about managing the expectations of the younger workforce too - I’ve worked in leadership roles for nearly 40 years now and I can honestly say that some (not all, but more than I remember over the years) of both our formally educated / graduates and also young people coming straight into the workplace from school age to join development programs come to work with an expectation that doesn’t always reflect the reality of learning a role and indeed developing within what is for many now difficult times for businesses. There’s a element of challenge and not all are ready for it or prepared for how they feel about putting themselves in that position. For some it’s not always worth the reward - and to be honest I can admire their ideas of work life balance and boundaries they’re not prepared to cross - I wish I had thought of it in ‘my day’!
I don't disagree, but would add that work life balance and setting boundaries are OK, but not if it's the taxpayer who is funding decisions not to work.
«A while back I met up with some youngish graduates from a good university. They told me that about half their friends are on benefits and not in work.»
These two quotes show clearly how uncompetitive they are, the first one is about the global wage for young STEM workers with a job in finance:
https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadminjobs/comments/1gltmn3/systems_administrator_salary/
"I work as a sysadmin in a small financial organization in one of the economically deprived countries in Africa. Work is good and not too demanding but the only problem is the pay. I am a fairy experienced professional, I have about 2 years experience in systems administration and bachelor's degree in Computer Science. I get around $172 a month after subtracting employee taxes. Life here is not very expensive, living costs like rent, food and transport cost around $114 a month. It leaves me with just over $50 to spare. This is what most people are getting when they start off in any IT career by the way( sysadmin, developers etc...)."
The same workers doing much the same job in the UK are paid around the minimum UK wage that is 10 times more:
https://www.economist.com/britain/2024/11/13/britains-big-squeeze-middle-class-and-minimum-wage
“At £25,300 ($32,110), the annual pay is typical for a graduate role. Come April next year, it will also be near the minimum wage. [...] A junior graphic designer (preferably with a degree and two years’ experience) can expect to earn £22,000, which will soon be below minimum wage."
In a competitive global job market UK wages do not need to fall all the way to the median global level but ideally they would be no more than 1/3 to 1/4 of what they are now, no higher than Malaysia for example.
But then cost-of-living would need also to fall by almost as much and this would blow up the housing market -- the fundamental problem of the UK is not merely that wages and salaries are 10 times the global market levels but the tension between that problem and the absolute political necessity to keep house prices booming as the whole economic and political system of the UK is based on rising house prices.
As demonstrated by house prices being flat for four years resulting in enormous upheavals in voting patterns.
Decline of traditional employment opportunities, AI, robotics, taxes on jobs and mental health worries are combining to make young adult unemployment structural rather than temporary. Increasing rates of structural youth umemployment carry significant consequences. I think we need to go way beyond supporting employability - which I fear will only have a modest marginal effect - to directly providing, via local leadership, paid 'public good' jobs (jobs that wouldnt otherwise exist, so little displacement effect) that provide a guaranteed pathway for pretty much all young people including for those with additional needs and disabilities. A wage of perhaps £5/hr for such jobs plus wrap around support would be costly, but could reset expectations, get more young people work-ready for the jobs that will exist e.g in the care sector, and avoid the high societal and individual cost of significant entrenched youth unemployment.
«Halve the jobs tax for people aged 21-24 [...] Set up “Get to work” [...] Create 100,000 more apprenticeships a year for 18-21 year olds [...] Replace the current sickness and disability benefits - ending PIP claims [...] Cut business rates on high street shops»
These are typical New Labour style policies largely based on the idea that there are plenty of jobs out there that the unemployed do not bother looking for or are over-taxed out of existence and they in the past were largely for show.
From a conservative point of view the reason for youth unemployment is that young british people are pricing themselves out of the job market:
* In the past 20 years total number of jobs has risen from 28m to 34m making it clear that there was no job shortage in the UK.
* In the global job market the typical wage is £1/hour and typical UK job seekers demand at least 10 times that, and potential employers feel exploited.
* Almost all of those extra 6m jobs have gone to global job market workers because they are far more competitive: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/buyout-boss-says-brexit-will-be-good-his-business-will-mean-30-cut-uk-wages-1602631 «One of the biggest names in European private equity said that Brexit will be good for his business, but will mean a 30% wage reduction for UK workers. [...] He added that EU immigration will be replaced with workers from the Indian subcontinent and Africa, willing to accept "substantially" lower pay.
* If young job seekers in the UK were willing to accept wages 10% lower than what african and indian global workers accept they would get jobs and at the same time immigration would stop. Also imagine how many "Middle England" families would hire 2-3 helpers if they cost £3-5 per hour, creating many millions of jobs.
From a conservative point of view the main issue is that young workers have fancy expectations of an affluent lifestyle where they sleep only 1 or 2 per room where most global workers are happy with sleeping 4 to 8 per room and want to eat "meal deals" during the day and microwave ready-meals in the evening instead of cooking and boxing and eating rice with potatoes or beans or margarine like global worker do.
As every conservative private person or business owner will keep telling you "it is so hard to find affordable help today".
They are all paid the minimum wage.
«They are all paid the minimum wage»
Perhaps not including the "entrepreneurs" like the delivery drivers running around on their capital (bikes, scooters, vans). Perhaps also not including those hanging around parking lots waiting to be called up by cash-in-hand gangmasters? Those working cash-in-hand in Bradford garment makers?
Regardless of the exceptions from a conservative point of view the big deal is that the minimum wage is itself way too high, at least 10 times higher than the global job market wage level and this prices out of employment british workers of all ages.
An UK wage level closer to global job markets levels would not only eliminate mass immigration but would also bring back many jobs making flip-flops, baskets, plastic toys, t-shirts, socket extensions, etc. that are currently offshored.
There is a reason why New Labour created lower minimum wage levels for workers 16-17 (in 2004) and for workers 18-21 (in 1998-1999).
Our blogger's proposals extends the same logic to workers 21-24 to increase the competitiveness of all workers up to 24, but then why not acknowledge if they were extended to all workers and the minimum wage substantially lowered they would help all workers get more competitive?
Youth worklessness deserves serious attention. But “there is no mystery” is a remarkably confident conclusion from figures that do not establish what caused it.
One major omission is employers’ use of AI and automation to reduce recruitment. In March 2026, the Bank of England reported that businesses were meeting demand without additional hiring through these technologies. It specifically identified reduced early-career recruitment at some large professional-services firms as routine entry-level work shrinks.
Young people do not need to be sacked to be displaced. The vacancy they would have filled simply never appears. Employers can improve productivity while removing the opportunities through which beginners gain experience.
Higher employment costs can discourage hiring. But acknowledging that does not justify treating lower wages, weaker protections and benefit cuts as a sufficient response. Making young people cheaper cannot guarantee employers will hire them when technology allows those employers to operate with fewer staff.
The benefits argument also needs care: PIP supports disability-related costs and can be claimed while working. More PIP recipients does not automatically mean more people choosing benefits over employment.
None of this proves automation is the largest cause. Equally, your figures do not prove your preferred political explanation. A credible response must examine employers’ recruitment decisions and how productivity gains are shared—not simply demand more concessions from young people struggling to get their first opportunity.
Sources: [Bank of England, March 2026](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/agents-summary/2026/march-2026), particularly “Employment and capacity utilisation”; [PIP eligibility and purpose](https://www.gov.uk/pip).
The parity of esteem doctrine - which has tied public policy and funding commitments to the whims of a notoriously shaky branch of 'science' - is clearly in need of drastic reform and yet it is something we seem unwilling to countenance.
Thank you for this article.
However, the effect you describe could be entirely explained by the increase in enrollment in higher education over the last two decades, which change the composition of the people who are not in education (who probably have now much lower skills and abilities than 20 years ago, since it's a lower share of the youth).
I think this composition effect is unlikely to explain the entire increase in inactivity and employment, but it has certainly a large effect.
You should also have posted percentage inactive / unemployed compared to the total 16-24 years old population, as well as percentage in education. That would have enabled to see the true trend, net of composition effect.
I reckon boris wave migration would have a big impact at the bottom end in London. Anecdotally there’s been a marked increase in people with subcontinental accents in public facing entry level positions these past few years.
Which would account for the NEETs. As for the grads I’m guessing AI/ economic slowdown & increased costs of hiring.
Also laying the blame on recent Labour policy is quite dishonest when % unemployed/inactive rose 7% in 2 years of Conservative gov before them coming in, and 0.9% in last 2 years. I agree your argument around their policy *seems* coherent, but I don't think the data backs you up yet.
"Dishonest"? What about those job vacancy facts, all since Labour was elected? Ratcheting up (even further than the Tories, I admit) mininum wages, new (incredibly pro-union, pro-exisitng worker) employment laws, employers NI rises.
Read my message! I say the policy argument you quote seems coherent, but the actual data shows a steep rise under last two years of conservatives then a much shallower rise under Labour. So to strongly link to those changes, currently, is dishonest in my view.
Youth unemployment rate UK Vs Europe? Job vacancies by size of company? Making young workers so expensive to hire and so hard to fire is more than a "coherent" argument. These policies are inspired by a Labour Party (and civil servant policymakers) in cahoots with the big trade unions, notoriously anti-competitive organisations, quite as bad as monopoly firms. That recent Conservative governments were also hopeless isn't a defence.
And ... tossing "dishonest" around as a description of an argument is such ridiculously rhetorical way to debate.
But I don't mean to be too negative - it is excellent to see real data-driven engagement with this issue!
I do agree with the general thrust of this piece, but I think your narrative around increasing % of worklessness in non-university young people is heavily confounded by the increasing numbers going to the university. This means that non-university cohort today has a very different make-up to early 90s.
The yuge increase has been since ‘21, during which time the cohort % in higher education has remained stable/ dipped a couple of pips (source, the bots so ymmv)
I’m afraid there’s also a piece about managing the expectations of the younger workforce too - I’ve worked in leadership roles for nearly 40 years now and I can honestly say that some (not all, but more than I remember over the years) of both our formally educated / graduates and also young people coming straight into the workplace from school age to join development programs come to work with an expectation that doesn’t always reflect the reality of learning a role and indeed developing within what is for many now difficult times for businesses. There’s a element of challenge and not all are ready for it or prepared for how they feel about putting themselves in that position. For some it’s not always worth the reward - and to be honest I can admire their ideas of work life balance and boundaries they’re not prepared to cross - I wish I had thought of it in ‘my day’!
I don't disagree, but would add that work life balance and setting boundaries are OK, but not if it's the taxpayer who is funding decisions not to work.