Young People: Unemployment
(asked on 26th January 2017) - View Source
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many young people aged between 16 and 19 years of age were not in education, employment or training in each quarter of 2016.
The Department for Education publish Quarterly statistics on young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The data covers England and is based on academic age. Many 19 year olds will be academic age 18 so academic ages 16-18 are included in the answer below.
Statistics for Quarter 4 2016 will be published on 23rd February 2017. Trends should be assessed by comparing the current time period with the same time period in the previous year to account for seasonal effects. Figures are therefore provided for the latest 2 years below.
It should also be noted that sample sizes in the Labour Force Survey are small for individual age cohorts, so sampling variation is large and caution should be taken in interpreting changes over the short term, particularly when numbers are small such as 16 and 17 year olds NEET.
| Academic age | ||||||
| 16 | 17 | 18 |
| Total 16-18 |
| 16-18 NEET rate |
2014 Q4 | 15,000 | 34,000 | 84,000 | 133,000 | 7.0% | ||
2015 Q1 | 10,000 | 37,000 | 88,000 | 134,000 | 7.1% | ||
2015 Q2 | 14,000 | 48,000 | 80,000 | 142,000 | 7.5% | ||
2015 Q3 | 28,000 | 81,000 | 82,000 | 191,000 | 10.2% | ||
2015 Q4 | 12,000 | 28,000 | 81,000 | 122,000 | 6.6% | ||
2016 Q1 | 20,000 | 35,000 | 65,000 | 121,000 | 6.5% | ||
2016 Q2 | 25,000 | 52,000 | 74,000 | 151,000 | 8.0% | ||
2016 Q3 | 30,000 | 64,000 | 71,000 | 164,000 | 8.7% | ||
The NEET rate for the 16-18 age group overall was 8.7% at the end of Q3 2016, 1.5 percentage points lower than Q3 2015 and the lowest Q3 NEET rate since consistent records began in 2000.
The ONS also release quarterly NEET estimates but their figures cover the UK, are based on calendar age and are seasonally adjusted.