Unemployment: Young People

To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many and what proportion of people aged between 16 and 24 years were not in education, employment and training in (a) each year since 1992 and (b) the latest quarter for which figures are available. (300486)

Table 1 shows the number and percentage of people aged 16 to 24¹ in England who are not in employment, education or training in quarter four of each year since 2000. Due to incomplete data, estimates are not available prior to 2000.

These estimates are from the Labour Force Survey and will include pregnant mothers, those caring for children or relatives, people with a disability or suffering from ill health, and those waiting for a course or job to start, including those on a gap year.

¹Age is based on academic age, which is defined as the age of the respondent at the preceding 31 August

*Table 1: Number and percentage of 16 to 24 years-olds not in employment, education or training*
	Number	Percentage (of all 16 to 24 years)
2000	629,000	12.3
2001	664,000	12.6
2002	659,000	12.2
2003	667,000	12.1
2004	744,000	13.2
2005	837,000	14.6
2006	808,000	13.8
2007	782,000	13.1
2008	857,000	14.2

In the latest quarter available, Q3 2009, there were 1,082,000 (18 per cent.) people aged 16 to 24 not in employment, education and training compared with 973,000 in Quarter 3 of 2008. It must be noted that a direct comparison between consecutive quarters cannot be made as quarterly NEET estimates from the LFS display a strong seasonal pattern.

Estimates for quarter three are always considerably higher than in quarter 4 because of the number of young people who are either between courses or who have recently left education.

Estimates for every quarter since 2005 have been produced by the Department for Children Schools and Families and are available here: NEET quarterly brief

Volume 501: debated on Tuesday 24 November 2009