Nye Cominetti

Thanks very much

Hi James, have you published these updated estimates anywhere? Would be great to be able to compare to where the OBR ends up next week

A more useful take away from this digging was seeing that the recent increase in youth unemployment isn't loads more students starting to look for work. It's mainly coming from the non-students i.e. the NEET-unemployed.

In case helpful for anyone, here is an attempt at showing how the NEET* and unemployment concepts relate to each other. Mainly to illustrate that you can be both, or one and not the other. It's to scale.

*actually, a proxy - not in *full-time* education or employment.

I'm still new to this area but 1. funding/availability of FE/apprenticeship places (funding isn't demand-led like HE - FE colleges have to turn people away sometimes) 2. making people change system/institution at age 16 -> stopping more possible 3. no one really accountable for what 18 year olds do.

Thanks - hadn't looked at those splits

Thanks. Nor was i until this week!

@louisemurphy.bsky.social has some other useful thoughts on causes / solutions in her thread yesterday bsky.app/profile/loui... There will be more to come from us soon on these questions.

I think those big gaps are largely about education systems and how young people manage (or don't) the transition into work. Obv a huge amount to get into here, but one chart for you: countries with low NEET rates are much better at offering young people opportunities to combine work and education

But a not-much-change stats release is also good chance to zoom out and think bigger about where the UK stands vs other countries. We're not the worst, but look what those top countries achieve. The NEET rate in the Netherlands is a *third* as high as the UK's. That's just such a big difference.

What should Govt do? While youth unemp is rising, pausing convergence of the youth min wage rates with the adult rate would be sensible. And the job guarantee offer should be more expansive - we shouldn't be waiting until a young person has been unemployed for 18 months to offer more intensive help.

It's hard to say how much of this picture of rising youth unemp is down to youth minimum wage rises, but those two opposite movements are at least consistent with it being part of the story - higher wages inducing more young people to seek work, but putting off some employers from hiring

There's more movement under the hood - we can break down NEETs by whether they are looking for work ('unemployed') or not ('inactive'). Over the past year, the NEET-unemployed rate has been rising, and the NEET-inactive rate falling slightly.

Population is rising so the NEET rates are of course better measures. Up slightly for 18-24s, flat for 16-17s in the latest numbers. But overall this as a pretty static picture in the short-term - no real change on Q3 2025. But clearly, rising over the past 3 years.

NEET estimates for Q4 2025 from ONS this morning. We already pretty much had the picture for Q4 from the main stats release last week (rising unemp) but let's run through the charts. And then zoom out.

First - the number crept up ever so slightly. Importantly for comms the number remains below 1m.

Tomorrow the ONS will publish new data on the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). This is important – and not just because the number is very close to one million…

YouTube video by The Damned - Topic Neat Neat Neat (2017 Remaster)

New NEET data out tomorrow. I assume 1,000 think tank reports have used this song for a pun (maybe even an RF one) but it's now going round my head so here you go www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXKD...

Uphill in a bobsleigh, lots of work for those pushers

It was, yes.

Fond of the UK's parochialism that it's Thames Valley police doing the arresting and not some uber crime agency. Similarly how in front of a packed Commons immediately before PM faces the opposition leader we see an MP ask something niche about their local area.

Life at the PDF mill is a hard, we need something to look forward to Robert

Speakers will include ... me! Looking forward to it. Do share with anyone you think might benefit from learning a bit about think tank world. We've been putting these events on for several years - they've always been well received. (Also by some distance our most-attended events).

One more thing on the youth unemployment rate: you can be 'unemployed' if you're in education, even full-time. All that matters is you tell the ONS you're available to work and are looking for work.

For these reasons the NEET rate is probably a better headline measure of how young people are doing.

Also, FWIW the choice to get the 18-20 rate to converge on the 21+ rate by 2029 wasn't explicit Govt policy - their remit just asked the LPC to consult on how to achieve this. So it's not a u-turn if the Govt now (in light of a weak labour market) decides they want to proceed more cautiously.

I do agree with the Government changing their policy here, though. There may be space to raise the youth minimum wage rate but trying to find out through rapid increases when unemployment is rising and hiring is slow isn't a good idea.

Reminder for journos about the unemployment rate: the denominator isn't all people it's all people *working or looking for work*. A more accurate description of the youth unemployment rate would be "1 in 6 young people who want to work don't have a job". archive.is/202602180759...

First time at an all inclusive, decided the most otherwise-expensive thing available for free at the at bar was white vermouth so spent the evening drinking that. Maximised something but it wasn't utility

All contact lines are at all times receiving a high volume of calls at the moment

Fascinating & grim article on the collapse in S Korea's fertility rate. Cost of parenting seems part of the reason - the amount of tutoring going on is insane. Not sure why S Korea has reached this education competition equilibrium and other countries haven't. worksinprogress.co/issue/two-is...

Great skewering of some rejected characters in the first few sections. Becomes a bit confusing and self referential. Very much not one to give the in-laws