Rt Hon Pat McFadden MP
Secretary of State for Work and PensionsWriting exclusively for Politics UK and Chamber UK, Work and Pensions Secretary, Pat McFadden says that the UK cannot afford to leave almost one million young people outside education, employment or training while businesses are struggling to fill roles. (Photo: Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer meets apprentices with Pat McFadden, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions during his visit to South Bank Technical College, Nine Elms Campus. Picture: Lauren Hurley/No 10 Downing Street)
There are almost one million young people in the UK who are not in education, employment or training.
Behind that number are almost a million unique stories of potential unrealised, aspiration without an outlet, and a system that has too often not delivered for young people.
At the same time, employers across the country are struggling to find the talent they need to grow.
We have a generation ready to contribute and an economy desperate for their contribution.
My job is to transform the system to bring those two things together to build a working state, not a welfare state.
We all agree that work is good for you, but for too long the climbing numbers of Neets – up 250,000 in the years before July 2024 – have been underdiscussed and unaddressed.
For our economy, the cost of that failure is not just measured in benefits expenditure, it is measured in the lifetime earnings that never materialised, the tax revenues never collected, and the communities left without the energy and enterprise of a generation that are written off before even getting started.
At the heart of what I’m doing at the Department for Work and Pensions is a fundamental shift in how we engage with young people who come to us for support.
For a young person who has never had a job, who may be dealing with mental health challenges, the system does not build bridges into work. It builds walls.
We are changing that. Through our Youth Guarantee, every young person aged 16 to 24 will be offered a chance to earn or learn, so that no one is left to drift.
A guaranteed offer changes the dynamic for young people and for employers alike. It signals that government is serious about being a long-term partner in getting this right.
We’re also bringing support right to young people in the community – meeting them where they are with Youth Hubs being rolled out to every area.
Your postcode won’t determine your opportunities under this government.
But we know that supply must be matched with demand.
That’s why we’re making it easier for businesses to take on young talent.
Employers do not pay National Insurance contributions for workers under the age of 21, and that is a meaningful reduction in the cost of bringing a young person into your workforce.
On top of that, we are introducing hiring bonuses for employers who take on young people who have been out of work.
And we’ve now got account managers who can work directly with businesses of all sizes to meet their recruitment needs – screening candidates, writing job descriptions or matching young people to roles.
For employers, that is time saved and money saved.
The message to business is simple: we have done the groundwork, we have reduced the financial risk, and we want to make it as easy as possible for you to say yes.
I am personally committed to this agenda because I believe that work, when it is genuinely accessible and genuinely rewarding, changes lives.
It changes communities.
But we must work together to support our young people – our future workforce. We can only turn the tide if businesses and government work together.
Unlocking the potential of Britain’s overlooked workforce is not a marginal policy priority.
It is central to everything we are trying to build.