Milburn report warns of an 'anxious generation' as nearly 1 million UK 16-24s remain out of work or study
Government jobs adviser Alan Milburn -- the former Labour health secretary commissioned in November by Prime Minister Keir Starmer -- will publish an interim report next week warning of an "anxious generation" of young people, with the share of NEETs citing mental health as the primary obstacle to work rising from 24 percent in 2011 to 43 percent today. Of the 946,000 16- to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training, more than half have never worked, and a quarter are classed as unable to work due to long-term sickness or disability. Milburn argues businesses must adapt with mental health support and flexibility, and that the cohort could relieve labour shortages as net migration drops -- to 171,000 in 2024 from a 2022 peak of 891,000.
Alan Milburn, the government's jobs adviser and a former Labour health secretary under Tony Blair, will publish an interim report next week warning that nearly one million 16- to 24-year-olds -- about one in eight -- are not in education, employment or training, the Times reported. Prime Minister Keir Starmer commissioned the review in November 2025. According to the Times, the report identifies "a rising tide of mental ill-health, anxiety, depression [and] neurodiversity" as a central driver of economic inactivity among the cohort, known as NEETs. "The system is trapping people in worklessness rather than enabling them into work. We're at a risk of just writing a whole generation off," Milburn told the paper.
The headline numbers are concrete. Of the 946,000 NEETs, more than half have never worked, and a quarter are classed as unable to work due to long-term sickness or disability. Among those, 43 percent cite mental health problems as the primary reason -- up from 24 percent in 2011. Britain's NEET rate is roughly double that of Japan or Ireland and three times that of the Netherlands; the government has previously acknowledged the share is significantly higher than in most developed economies. Unemployment under the age of 23, the report notes, has been linked to lower wages two decades later.
Milburn frames the trend around the digital environment in which the cohort grew up, saying smartphones have "rewired" young brains. "This is a bedroom generation. They are sort of living in their bedrooms. They are on all the time, they're never off. [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," he said. He explicitly pushed back at the "snowflake" framing: "They are not snowflakes. People say it's a soft generation. My view unequivocally is that it isn't. It is an anxious generation." The report itself reads, "[Young people] are different, not worse, not lazier, not less intelligent. They have grown up in a digital world that has rewired how they communicate, form relationships and manage stress. They have fewer experiences of workplaces and they present with higher levels of anxiety and depression."
The report's recommendations target employers. Milburn will call on businesses to offer more flexibility and mental health support to avert what he calls an "economic catastrophe," and he is expected to argue that the NEET cohort could relieve the skilled-labour shortage facing British firms. The argument lands the same week as Office for National Statistics figures showed net migration to the UK fell to 171,000 in 2024, down from a 2022 peak of 891,000 -- a drop that has narrowed the migrant labour supply firms had been relying on. Earlier in the week, UK chief constables called for blocking under-16s from unsafe social media platforms; Peter Hyman, a former headteacher and adviser to Blair and Starmer, told the Guardian that schools were becoming a "pipeline" to worklessness and pressed for radical change including a social media ban.