Young Men Missing From UK Job Market Are a Problem for Starmer
- Almost 500,000 18 to 24-year-olds are not in work, education
- Worklessness fueling social divisions and threatening growth
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The number of young British men who are neither in work nor preparing for the world of work is at its highest in over 10 years, posing a major challenge to the economic ambitions of the new Labour government.
For decades, far more women than men were classified as NEET — not in education, employment or training. Thanks to government efforts to get more women into the workforce after the financial crisis, the gap had closed by the time the pandemic struck in 2020. The question now for Prime Minister Keir Starmer is how to tackle rising worklessness in the male population.