This is a gruesome statistic and a pretty damning condemnation of the Labor labor market right now.
Just half of 16 to 24-year-olds in the UK were in payrolled work at the end of last year, according to Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis that underscores the scale of the country’s escalating youth jobless crisis.
The proportion, 50.6%, has fallen from 54.9% at the end of 2022, a drop similar in scale to the pandemic and the 2008 financial crisis, the study of administrative data found.
And while there’s all sorts of lip-service and money being thrown at it, the obstinate Europhiles in the Labor government of Sir Keir Starmer are ignoring the problems right in front of their eyes as they look over the top of them towards the shiny object that is their long-desired reapproachment with the European Union.
Starmer can almost taste it, he’s so close.
British 16-24-year-olds don’t have jobs and can’t find any? Are watching all hope their futures, for any future at all, slip away?
…The London job show is the capital’s biggest career event. It is held every year and hosts a range of employers from the Metropolitan police to car valet services. This year, the event is particularly relevant as unemployment levels have soared, with young people bearing the brunt of the crisis.
Demi Trowsdale, 24, has a degree in neuroscience and psychology. She has been unemployed for four months and estimates that she has sent off 170 applications online. Her aim is to work in healthcare but after being unsuccessful in applying for jobs in the sector, she has “widened the pool” of potential employment.
“It makes me feel less hopeful by the day, quite dehumanised. Mainly because of the lack of individual feedback that you get, it’s usually a blanket statement saying: ‘You’ve been unsuccessful,’” Trowsdale said.
The Labour government’s answer is to throw money at it to ‘create’ some (very expensive) ‘jobs’…
…The UK government has pledged to invest £1bn to help create 200,000 jobs for young people. Rawlings said this investment was “welcome and long overdue” but needed to “reach young people quickly” to make a change to their real lives.
It doesn’t begin to address the core problems that overregulation and excessive taxation are causing within the British business community, for one thing.
And in another, it’s a bandaid, plain and simple, that will shrivel up and die unless Labour can kick-start some sort of recovery, which, of course, they are incapable of.
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has welcomed a youth employment drive from Government but warned that industry needs a “joined-up approach”.
Backed by a £1 billion investment, Government’s youth employment drive will aim to create 200,000 jobs for young people.
The ‘New Deal’ will include a new Youth Jobs Grant, through which businesses will receive £3,000 for every young person they hire aged 18-24 who has been on Universal Credit and looking for work for six months. It said this is expected to support 60,000 young people over three years.
The Jobs Guarantee will also have a wider age range, from 18-21 to 18-24, in order to create more than 35,000 extra subsidised jobs. Further reforms to the Growth and Skills Levy will aim to “prioritise young apprentices, secure value for money and give school and college leavers more opportunities to build careers”.
Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said: “These measures will give life-changing opportunities to young people and significantly reverse the increase we inherited in those not in education, employment or training.
In classic progressive form, Labour will then sabotage even what little good that massively expensive, virtue-signaling expenditure will do by sucking up to the EU and importing more young foreigners to take what jobs are available.
With Starmer and his aspiring group of amateur globalists, it’s always all about kissing that continental imperial ring.
Isn’t our British youth employment already at an all time low
— Adam Joyce (@joycey07) April 15, 2026
The British government has coined a term for this forgotten and forlorn group – NEET. It stands for ‘not in education, employment or training,’ and the numbers have shot up alarmingly recently.
While some Brits are coming to the rueful realization that there has been an overemphasis on university degrees, resulting in an overabundance and subsequent devaluation of the same, much like we have witnessed acknowledged here…
Too many young people pushed towards university, says UK government adviser
Too many young people are being pushed towards university rather than technical education, leaving tens of thousands of recent graduates out of work, a government review into youth inactivity and worklessness will say.
One in 10 young people who are not in education, employment or training (Neets) now has a degree, according to a review led by former Labour cabinet minister Alan Milburn.
This shows that the education system is not giving employers the skills they need and the “protective power” of education has weakened, Milburn will say when the review is published later this month.
He will call for an increase in funding for technical and vocational courses, criticising schools for overemphasising university to young people, as well as Sir Keir Starmer’s government for squeezing further education funding.
…much of the blame for recent pain can be squarely placed on Starmer’s government and its policies.
…The Labour government, which promised to “abolish youth unemployment,” is partly to blame, business leaders and economists say. Firms scaled back recruitment, especially in sectors such as hospitality that traditionally employ younger workers, after hefty increases to payroll taxes and the minimum wage last year.
…The decline in youth employment is widespread across the UK and has led to a rise in welfare claims, much it driven by inactivity-related benefits with no work search requirements, the IFS said.
The think tank said data is not yet available to conclude that increases to the minimum wage had hurt youth employment. However, a recent report from the Centre for Cities found areas where the minimum wage was highest relative to typical local pay also had a high proportion of young people claiming universal credit.
Here’s an example of what has been choking any hiring out of the Labour market. This fellow is the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, and he’s also a Labour MP. He put out this slick, chirpy video bragging about an Employment Rights Act they’ve passed, which is jammed filled with all sorts of benefit goodies.
From today, millions of workers will start to feel the benefits from our landmark Employment Rights Act.
This is just the beginning. pic.twitter.com/stwqKL99aL
— Peter Kyle (@peterkyle) April 6, 2026
The pinch comes when one realizes the government is forcing already stressed British businesses to pay for all of this. None of it is coming from Parliament. It’s not a government-funded gift – it’s another mandate on employers to foot the bill for.
One older fellow in the comments was shocked when he realized who was paying for all these marvelous new requirements. He worried that older folks who need jobs now won’t be able to get them, because it will now be too expensive to hire them.
I have worked for my company for 15yrs. I am 65yrs old, just at the age where my health is beginning to let me down. I was absolutely astonished to find out that SSP is paid by the employer!!!! Lots of older people won’t get jobs now as we tend to get SICKER QUICKER! Numpty move…
— Chekeeuk (@chekeeuk) April 6, 2026
…Numpty move if you ask me! In the last 2yrs I have had to take off 6mths sick, due to ill health. I hope the young ones on the unemployment list make up the gap! Don’t think so somehow. Our Company has everyone over the age of 35yrs, they are the only ones that stay!!!
The younger workers he’s hoping will pick up the slack are going to be fewer and farther between when they are hired, thanks to these onerous Labour employer requirements.
The Bloomberg article says that most of these disaffected job seekers have been turning from Labor to the Green Party, which, besides their targeted courting of the Muslim vote, could well explain the success in the elections a week ago.
So this disaffection is breeding the next round of radicals. The cycle feeds itself if a party refuses to break free of dogma.
For instance, if Labour weren’t so climate-cult mad, there’d be work in the North Sea and Scottish oil fields, but alas.
One gets one’s hands dirty in those sorts of knuckle-dragging occupations, which, to Labour, is simply intolerable.
There’s no denying Labour MP’s are awfully good at these syrupy video messages.
Renters rights – less properties higher rents
Workers rights. – Youth employment taking a massive hit due to costs of hiring them.
Streets are not safer.
Great British energy con – produces nothing, costs billions.
Children are in poverty because their parents don’t work
— Albert (@uncle90705) May 12, 2026
They might as well be good at something.
It doesn’t seem as if they have much else to offer.
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