The number of those aged 16 to 24 and not in education, employment or training has risen to almost one million, a think tank has revealed.

In a report titled ‘Wasted Youth’, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) think tank has found that 97,000 fewer employees aged below 25 are on the payroll compared to more than five years ago.

According to the CSJ, the number of those not in education, employment or training (NEET) is one in eight, with 250,000 found to be ‘economically inactive’ because of illness, including ‘mental/emotional difficulties’ (62%) and ‘cognitive difficulties’ (50%).

The second group of NEETs remains ‘difficult to identify’, says the CSJ, due to their minimal contact with Government services. For example, almost three quarters of the ‘others’ are not welfare claimants, but are understood by charities as ‘people who are isolated, confused about work, and lacking in confidence’.

The think tank proposes that the latter group is ‘neither well-off nor supported by well-off parents’, with both groups facing ‘profound implications for long-term life chances’.

The CSJ also claims that male NEETs ‘are 10 times likelier to remain economically inactive 20 years later, by one estimate, leaving them poorer, sicker, lonelier, and more likely to die early’.

To provide the solutions that the think tank argues are ‘desperately’ needed, the report advises implementing a Future Workforce Credit that will ‘replace ineffective incentives’ and encourage employers to recruit and upskill NEETs.

Further recommendations include the introduction of Connect to Work reforms, supporting those with ‘complex barriers to work’, alongside improvements to Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs).

Finally, the think tank calls on the Government to ensure access to Universal Credit (UC) Health is limited to the age of 22 years or above, as well as removing eligibility to Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and UC Health for those with ‘less severe mental health conditions’.

‘The £7.4bn saved should be reinvested in expanding NHS Talking Therapies and improving employment support to help them into work and improve their mental health’, the report reads.