Young people are rejecting work. Why?

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“I’m considering living in the wild, just trotting around the globe with little money,” reads a post on a Reddit forum for Neets. “I was working [in] a retail store and the first few hours were OK, then I had to deal with customers,” reads another. “I packed my bag and just left.”

In this forum, a community of 44,000 people from around the world share advice and discuss the challenges of being a Neet — an acronym for not in education, employment or training.

It is not just an online phenomenon. “I could never go back to working a normal job again,” Morgan, who left his role in 2020 and asked to remain anonymous, told the FT. “With inflation and rents rising, the incentive to devote all of my time to an employer to barely scrape by didn’t make sense any more.”

In the third quarter of this year, official UK figures showed 13 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds were Neets, nearly 1mn people. Two-fifths of these were looking for work; the rest were “economically inactive”, neither working nor looking, opting out of the labour market completely.

This puts the number of economically inactive young people close to its highest level — a similar story in Europe and the US, where more than 1 in 10 young people are Neets. 

While the term first gained traction in 1990s UK government policy, which sought to help older teenagers into work, it has since been adopted internationally and by a wider subculture of economically inactive people. Reddit’s Neet forum includes people in their 50s; recent posts depict a “self-loathing man of inaction late 20s/early 30s” or ask if “30+ NEETS [can] turn their life around?”

After starting out as a car salesman ten years ago, Morgan, now 30, was forced out of work by depression and an illness that took him in and out of hospital. When he recovered, the pandemic had shut his industry down: he opted out of work, using the time to teach himself how to repair old cars and post videos online. 

“My time to develop my interests was worth more than I could make working, even if it wasn’t making me any money,” he says. But eventually the bills began to pile up. “I was put out on the street for unpaid rent. I lived in my car for a few days before a friend took me in. I’m lucky that’s where I am today.”

Josh, 24, dropped out of university after deciding it wasn’t worth the money. “I went on to have a few retail jobs but I found it tough to interact with people in the workplace because of my social anxiety,” he told the FT. I’ve moved back in with my parents now, who are able to support me. I help my mum around the house and I’m trying to teach myself programming.” 

Louise Murphy, economist at the Resolution Foundation think-tank, says mental health is one driver of rising Neet numbers: in 20 years, the proportion of young people reporting a disorder such as anxiety or bipolar has increased from a quarter to a third. This makes them more likely to be out of work: an RF report found between 2018 and 2022, 21 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds with mental health problems were jobless, compared with 13 per cent of those without.

Niall O’Higgins, an International Labour Organization economist, suggests younger people are also disenchanted with the quality of jobs on offer, and are “lacking prospects for development, workplace training and the ability to build up their options”.

Employers make themselves more attractive, he says, by offering flexibility and support, including “exploring alternatives in terms of organisation of work”. In a survey of Gen Z workers by talent sourcing platform A.Team, 80 per cent said the four-day working week should be the norm, 60 per cent would like a hybrid working model, and half valued training opportunities. 

Murphy says nurturing relationships can have a significant impact. “When we asked what young people would change about the world of work, they didn’t ask for big, flashy reforms. They wanted to have more human, understanding managers.” This might include additions like one-to-one catch-ups which are not the norm in all professions. 

“I resent the accusation that young people don’t want to work,” Morgan says. “Everyone wants to contribute, but the reward for devoting your time to doing so is no longer worth it in many cases.”