One in six young people will not be in work or training in five years without action, report warns
Business / Thu 28th May 2026 at 07:07am
ONE in six young people will not be in education, employment or training within five years unless “urgent” action is taken, a major review has warned reports the BBC.
The education, health and welfare systems are “no longer fit for purpose” in preparing young people for adult life, said its author former minister Alan Milburn.
“We are at risk of a lost generation,” he warned, with the number of 16 to 24-year-olds out of work, education or training set to rise to 1.25 million by 2031.
Click below for full report.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy026x9jpd0o
David Forman
2026-05-28 07:58:44
Too Blairite Alan Milburn says Education, Health and Welfare systems not fit for purpose. Being keen on privatisation of public services, I expect his later report on solutions will focus on more private sector involvement, stripping benefits and more employer subsidies. What he probably will overlook is the large numbers of young people that were once trained by the former nationalised industries and the onset of a British business culture of hiring in ready trained foreign labour.
Mike
2026-05-28 12:18:56
I'm not sure that it helps to keep raising the pension age and making us oldies work longer. The higher the retirement age goes, the more older people stay in work, meaning less opportunities for younger people...
Guy Flegman
2026-05-28 14:09:03
Many jobs are being lost to new tech. Normally new tech created lots of new jobs to replace those that are lost. It’s different this time though as the tech is able to train itself faster than we can train ourselves now. This means it’s almost impossible to retrain if you lose your job to tech, because by the time you have retrained for something else the tech has replaced that job as well. Our society has a very difficult time ahead as in the next 50 years we will experience one of the largest societal change hamanity has had thrown at it
Mr George
2026-05-28 14:36:59
I agree Guy, things are changing a lot at the moment and not for the better. AI is going to cause a lot of issues as well as traditional 1st jobs when leaving college on the high street are now hard to come by as lost so many retailers and restaurants. It's difficult and quite depressing for the youngsters starting out as they seem to have been hit by all angles. Maybe some of the more savvy ones will start training in the trades sector, big shortage of plumbers, sparkies, builders and those wages have gone up decently in line with demand?
Jay-g
2026-05-29 04:52:48
Why work when you can sell drugs or laughing gas?
Guy Flegman
2026-05-29 06:41:47
@mr George. Sadly many young people do not want these jobs as they have been brought up to believe your pot of gold is behind a computer screen. The few I know in manual/engineering jobs actually love them, but these jobs were taken as a last resort. Even my engineering business struggles to find young people. I actually hired a person recently and they did not last the induction as they found it too stressful. We also stopped taking apprenticeships in2020 due to gov reaction to pandemic followed by the new gov policies. Hopefully we can restart this next year. I should add we have been in business since 1979 and the last 5 years have been the worst, and the worst part about it was it was all down to successive gov policy and not general market conditions. This is something I never expected as you would think that the gov has got your backs. I know many many businesses across many sectors that have had a similar experience.
Adam
2026-05-29 08:38:50
Guy, I have come to the conclusion government does not have our backs in fact it actively works against most people and companies in the UK. Unless you are a large corporation, NGO or some other weird organisation which has led to the destruction of the UK. It will not get better until we rid ourselves of the global plague which is the political class, they have never built or achieved anything. they favour the buzz word and communicating the right message over delivery. We need real world people in government not ones who have sat isolated in some weird political bubble.
Mr George
2026-05-29 10:11:08
Gut Flegman, sorry you're having trouble. Had heard the same from my plumber, apprentices struggling to learn, follow orders and find any interest in the job before quitting. Waste of everyones time. Perhaps it's time to push vocational schools as much as computer sciences and start backing companies and our youth.
Mr George
2026-05-29 10:11:45
Sorry, Guy, not Gut! Apologies.
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