Alan Milburn<\/a> was appointed by Sir Keir Starmer<\/a> as chairman of the Young People and Work Report as hundreds of thousands of 16-24-year-olds are not in education, employment<\/a> or training (Neets). <\/p>\n His interim report, set be published next week, will suggest that the \u201crising tide of mental ill-health, anxiety, depression, neurodiversity\u201d is the main reason for high economic inactivity. <\/a><\/p>\n Speaking to The Times,<\/a> the former health secretary said young people \u201care not snowflakes or faking it\u201d, but the rise in these issues could be linked to growing up in a digital age on social media<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe system is trapping people in worklessness rather than enabling them into work,\u201d Mr Milburn told the paper. \u201cWe\u2019re at a risk of just writing a whole generation off.\u201d<\/p>\n The research also described a \u201cbedroom generation\u201d with many of those who had left school at 16 having spent months or even years at home, much of it online.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are on all the time, they\u2019re never off,\u201d Mr Milburn added. \u201c[Social media] is leading to some evidence of functional impairment, changing their sleep patterns, concentration levels. That is having an impact on their ability to work.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are not snowflakes. People say it\u2019s a soft generation. My view unequivocally is that it isn\u2019t. It is an anxious generation.\u201d<\/p>\n The report is expected to say that the welfare state was \u201cbuilt for a different era and must change now if we are to avoid a generational, societal and economic catastrophe\u201d.<\/p>\n It adds that young people have \u201cgrown up in a digital world that has rewired how they communicate, form relationships and manage stress. They have fewer experiences of workplaces and they\u202fpresent with\u202fhigher levels of anxiety and depression.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr Milburn\u2019s interim report will say that if the problem is not tackled, young people could be stuck on benefits for life which could impact economic growth.<\/p>\n There were 729,000 young people aged 16 to 24 who were unemployed between January to March this year – 110,000 more than last year. The total number of young people considered Neet was 957,000, according to the Office for National Statistics between October and December 2025.<\/p>\n A report published earlier this week, which will form part of the Milburn review, also identified social media as a driver of so-called quitting culture among young people.<\/p>\n It also found \u201cthe promotion of online success leads to a quitting culture if things take time\u201d and warned school has become a \u201cNeet pipeline\u201d, with exam pressure \u201cconsuming most of secondary school\u201d and a lack of further or higher education opportunities beyond university study.<\/p>\n \u201cThe tragedy is that young people have so much potential, many of them are doing extraordinary things on the side, but their lives are filled with too many obstacles, too much heartache and too little agency,\u201d the Inside the Mind of a Young Neet co-author Peter Hyman said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-598932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"729,000](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4603d624a28ed4511f81c5d3a478e870Y29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzcyMjA1Mjk1-2.82538319.jpg\")
729,000 16-24 year olds were not employed between January and March this year (PA Wire)<\/p>\n![\"Sir](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2168081967...jpeg\")
Sir Keir Starmer appointed Alan Milburn to investigate NEETs (Getty)<\/p>\n