Britain publishes a quarterly number for young people who are neither working nor learning, and it made headlines when it crossed a million. The U.S. rate is nearly identical — roughly 4.5 million young Americans — but it lives scattered across three agencies under three different names, so nobody notices.
Being in your early 20’s these days isn’t easy, especially in the U.K. and U.S.
The Office for National Statistics reported August 27 that 981,000 young Britons are neither working nor learning — and most aren’t even looking. They call it NEET which stands for not in education, employment, or training. It’s a British statistical category for young people — usually ages 16 to 24 — who are simultaneously out of work and out of any form of schooling or skills program.
The scariest part is, as stated above, most aren’t looking.
Earlier this year the count hit 1,012,000 — the first time it passed a million since 2013. And during that peak, only 400,000 were job hunting. The other 612,000 had left the labor market entirely, meaning they didn’t show up in an unemployment rate.
Not in Employment, Education, or Training. https://t.co/lekMtsLL0r pic.twitter.com/IjVkXOEcWO
— Neet (@neet_sol) May 28, 2026
Two forces explain it.
First, hospitality vacancies halved in four years and apprenticeship starts fell by more than a third in a decade. Second, health — the share of NEET young people citing a work-limiting condition rose from 26% to 44% in ten years, mostly mental health and neurodevelopmental diagnoses.
Facts: Primary schools in England are required to flag children at risk of becoming NEET, using attendance records, with pupil premium money directed at tutoring and mentoring for them. In addition, the U.K. has significantly expanded internships for young people with learning disabilities, autism, or mental illness.
It took these geniuses 15 or so years to figure that out? pic.twitter.com/0hdmLLknYM
— Avernus (@Avernusmite) May 28, 2026
And what about mass migration? Could that be fueling Britain’s NEET? Maybe… But the U.S. has tightened its immigration and is aggressively deporting folks yet American unemployment among young people is even worse.
America Has Its Own Missing Million. We Just Doesn’t Count Them
In raw numbers, the U.S. has somewhere between 4.3 and 5.5 million disconnected young people. Percentage wise, it’s the same as the U.K. but America’s age range is narrowed to 18-to-24-year-olds (instead of 16-to-24-year-olds) so it’s actually worse here than in the U.K. because America’s rate of NEET represents a smaller demographic.
And Stanford researchers using ADP payroll data found employment for 22-to-25-year-olds in the most AI-exposed occupations now sits 19% below what was expected, up from 15% a year earlier.
Fact: Young workers without degrees have near-record-low unemployment (4.1%); those with degrees are near record highs (5.7%).
So, let’s be specific: Young workers aren’t being laid off — they’re being locked out. The U.S. sits in a “low-hire, low-fire” market where firms hoard staff and stop creating vacancies, and since new entrants depend entirely on those vacancies, they take the hit first. The St. Louis Fed calls them the labor market’s “canary in the coal mine.’
Is AI to blame?
Partially. Tools like ChatGPT and Copilot seem to be automating the grunt work traditionally handed to juniors.
Nevertheless, AI isn’t entirely responsible. High funds rates, tariff uncertainty, and Iran conflict/war froze employer hiring — and a hiring freeze, unlike a layoff wave, falls almost entirely on the people trying to get in.
The deep risk: Damage travels forward in time rather than outward by age. A hollowed-out junior pipeline becomes a mid-level talent shortage in five to ten years, and today’s shut-out cohort carries a permanent wage scar.
The 24-year-old who can’t get hired this year is the 31-year-old nobody can find in 2033, because the training that would have made them hireable never happened. Companies are saving money now on an expense that will come back at a much worse price. And for the workers themselves, a bad first few years isn’t something you make up later; it shows up in their paychecks for the rest of the decade.
