The UK has a Neet epidemic: those aged 16 to 24 classed as not in employment, education, or training. At various times in my life, I have counted myself among their number. It’s an easy status to fall into, yet it’s not the land of sunshine and roses one sometimes imagines jobless youth to be. The numbers grow year by year, and many of those entering the status fall further into Neetdom, whether it be by a conspicuous gap on the CV that leaves them even more behind, the realisation that you can live just as well on benefits or mere feelings of hopelessness after hundreds of failed job applications.
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The luvvies are out for Reform. Is anyone listening?
The truth is, it’s bloody tough out there getting a job. I can’t deny my generation is more exacting in what they’ll choose to do, harbouring ideas about their intrinsic value that the job market doesn’t seem to agree on. After all, no one wants to be the first generation of their family to be downwardly sociably mobile. Yet the majority of university degrees given out nowadays have minimal value-add and offer the graduate little more than high expectations and £50,000 of student debt. This has led to what scientist Peter Turchin calls ‘elite overproduction’: there are more aspiring elites than there are positions available within the existing power structure.
