Forty-five per cent of 24-year-olds who are not in education, employment, or training – known as ‘NEETs’ – have never had a job. Not a Saturday shift at a café, not a summer stacking shelves, not an entry-level role that teaches you what an invoice or balance sheet looks like. Alan Milburn, former Labour health secretary and now chair of the government’s own young people and work review, delivered this verdict this week with the weary authority of a doctor who knows the patient is deteriorating but cannot persuade them to change the treatment.

The latest figures from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) confirm what anyone with a passing familiarity with employing people will know. As they argue:

There are indications that younger workers in particular are being priced out of the market. A rise of 33 per cent in the minimum wage over the past two years has pushed up the unemployment rate for 18-24 year olds by more than two percentage points to 14 per cent – the highest in a decade. 

There are indications that younger workers in particular are being priced out of the market. A rise of 33 per cent in the minimum wage over the past two years has pushed up the unemployment rate for 18-24 year olds by more than two percentage points to 14 per cent – the highest in a decade. 

A generation of young people who have never held a job is not an abstraction

A generation of young people who have never held a job is not an abstraction

Overall unemployment is heading for 5.4 per cent this year, its worst since 2015 (bar during the lockdowns). The cost of hiring an entry-level worker jumped 10.6 per cent last year alone owing to the rise in employer National Insurance contributions. And the government’s response? To........

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