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  9. Government likely to miss target on young people in education, employment or training, warns union

Government likely to miss target on young people in education, employment or training, warns union

25 February 2010

UCU today welcomed the news that there had been a reduction in the proportion of young people not working or in education or training. However, the union warned that recent history suggests the numbers are likely to rise from the next quarter and that the government is very unlikely to meet its own target in reducing the number of people not in education, employment or training (NEETs).

According to figures released at 9.30am this morning the percentage of 16-18-year-olds NEETs in England dropped from 13.4% to 9.3% in the final quarter of 2009 - a drop of 84,000. However, the trend in recent years is for the percentage of NEETs to fall sharply in the final quarter of the calendar year and then gradually increase during the first three quarters of the following year, in line with the academic year.
 
The government's target is to reduce the percentage of 16-18 year olds NEETs to 7.6% in 2010. This figure is measured by a different measure, the Statistical First Release (SFR), an annual year-end figure, and is not directly comparable with the quarterly Labour Force Survey (LFS) figure. The most recent SFR was for the end of 2008, when the percentage of NEETs was 10.3%. On this basis, although NEETs fell sharply in the last quarter, the 2009 SFR figure is likely to be higher than the government's target of 7.6%. That data is due to be published in June
 
UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'These figures demonstrate the importance of further education colleges and their staff in attracting and retaining young people to education and training. The overall figure remains too high and history has taught us that the percentage of NEETs is likely to rise as the academic year progresses, making the government unlikely to meet its target.
 
'If the government is serious about helping the thousands of people not working, training or in education then it needs to rethink plans for savage cuts to college funding for 2010-2011. 7,000 jobs are at risk in adult learning, which will obviously damage provision for adults but will also seriously hit colleges' capacity to respond to the needs of 16-18 year olds. Colleges don't operate in separate silos; teachers teach both young people and adults. If teachers lose their jobs because of adult cuts they clearly won't be available to teach young people.'
 
The full statistics can be found here.

Last updated: 19 June 2019

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