Young people are struggling to score their first jobs, and it might be because they’re just not ready to enter the workforce, after missing out on critical social development during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Joblessness in Generation Z is on the rise as nearly one million young British people, between the ages of 16 and 24, were NEETs (not in education, employment, or training), between July and September 2025, according to the U.K. Office for National Statistics.
Identified as a crisis, the government launched an independent review into NEETs in December, led by former Labour Health Secretary Alan Milburn.
Worryingly, the ONS report found that almost 600,000 of those young people who were unemployed were also not actively looking for a job.
Young people are facing several challenges in the job market, from artificial intelligence eliminating entry-level positions to increased competition for jobs. More than 1.2 million applications were submitted for just 17,000 graduate roles in the U.K. last year, per The U.K.’s Institute for Student Employers.
