Youth Futures welcome the latest UK data on youth employment released by ONS today, which show a continued rise in the number of young people who are in education, training or work. Nevertheless, there is still a lot of progress yet to be made.
Our priorities at Youth Futures are:
- To reduce the NEET rate for 16-18 year olds from 4.5% to zero as we believe all young people under 18 should be in education, training, or a blend of learning and work.
- To unlock untapped potential among those 18-24 year olds who face the greatest challenges accessing work. Society is missing out on the talents and skills of too many young people across the country, those from ethnic minority groups, with disabilities, experience of being in care, from low income families, with caring responsibilities, in insecure housing or with offending history. Now is the time for action and levelling up.
- To ensure young people from all backgrounds have access to good quality work, paying a wage they can live on and the opportunity to progress. To achieve this we must challenge prejudice and discrimination in the workplace and work together to create more meaningful and sustained work opportunities for all young people. It is only in this way that we will be able to begin to tackle the shocking persistence of ethnic disparities in youth employment rates and breakdown the barriers presented by other demographic factors such as disability, low income, geographic location or class.
Youth Futures is committed to working in partnership to maintain positive employment trends for young people and doing more to unlock untapped potential.
