The latest rise in young people not in education, employment or training – Neets – has been driven by a record number who are classed as being economically inactive.An estimated 1.01 million 16 to 24-year-olds in the UK were neither working nor learning in January-March this year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).This is up from 957,000 in the previous three months and is the highest estimate for Neets since October-December 2013, when the figure stood 1.04 million.ONS data for Neets begins in 2001 and shows the total peaked at 1.25 million in July-September 2011.The number was on a broad downwards trend in the years after 2011 and reached 750,000 in October-December 2019.This decline came to a halt in 2020 – the start of the Covid-19 pandemic – though the figure did not begin to climb steadily until late 2022.Of the estimated 1.01 million young people not in education, employment or training in January to March 2026, 613,000 were classed as economically inactive.This is up 66,000 from 547,000 in October-December 2025 and is the highest number of people in this category since ONS data on Neets began in 2001.People are classed as economically inactive if they are of working age and not in employment, but not currently looking for work.It is different from being unemployed, which refers to people with no job but who are actively seeking work.The jump in the number of economically inactive Neets was driven mostly by an increase in males.Young men aged 16-24 accounted for 53,000 of the rise of 66,000 in this category between October-December 2025 and January-March 2026, while young women accounted for only 13,000.Some 400,000 Neets in January-March were unemployed, down from 411,000 the previous quarter.The 1.01 million people classed as Neet in the latest figures is the equivalent of 13.5% of all 16 to 24-year-olds in the UK, or nearly one in seven.This is up from 12.5% a year earlier, the equivalent of one in eight.In October-December 2019, just before the pandemic, the proportion stood at 10.7%, or nearly one in nine.