Fresh analysis from the IFS, published ahead of the latest Office for National Statistics labour market release, shows the share of 16- to 24-year-olds on a UK payroll has fallen by 4.3 percentage points since December 2022, a drop of roughly 330,000 young people. Payrolled employment in the age group now stands at 50.6 per cent, down from 54.9 per cent three years earlier.
To put the scale in context, the Covid-19 shock pulled youth employment down by 6.5 points, and the 2008 financial crisis prised away 5.4 points relative to the pre-crisis trend. The current decline, in other words, is no longer a rounding error, it is approaching the territory of a full-blown labour market crisis, but without the obvious headline-grabbing trigger that accompanied the last two.
The consequences are already visible in the so-called Neet figures, those not in education, employment or training. The cohort has swelled from 760,000 at the end of 2022 to roughly 960,000 by the close of last year, closing in on the one-million mark that policymakers had long treated as a symbolic red line.
Jed Michael, author of the IFS report, did not mince his words. “The fall in youth employment across the UK is likely to be setting off alarm bells among ministers, not least because we know that unemployment early in one’s career can have lasting negative consequences,” he said.
That so-called “scarring effect” is well documented. Graduates and school leavers who enter the workforce during a downturn typically earn less, change jobs more often and reach senior pay grades later than peers who began in benign conditions. The hit is not just personal: lost productivity, weaker tax receipts and higher benefits bills follow young people through their working lives.
Michael’s caveat, however, is one ministers ought to dwell on. “While it does not seem to be down solely to a temporary cyclical downturn in the economy, more evidence is needed to understand the roles of minimum wage, youth mental health, AI and other factors,” he added. “Without this evidence, expensive policies to reduce the Neet rate are shots in the dusk, if not the dark.”
The UK has historically been a star performer in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development league tables for youth employment. That advantage is eroding, and the data suggests something more than a standard cyclical slump is at work.
The pain is sharpest among 22- to 24-year-olds, typically graduates and college-leavers stepping onto the first rung of the career ladder. Employment in that group has dropped by 4.8 points in three years. The 18- to 21-year-olds have fared better, down only 1.1 points, while 16- and 17-year-olds have seen a 7.3-point slide that the IFS attributes largely to vanishing casual and part-time work alongside studies.
Geographically, the slump is broad rather than concentrated. Payrolled employment among the young has fallen by at least three points in two thirds of the UK’s regions and nations, and the share of 18- to 24-year-olds claiming out-of-work benefits has risen across the board. Cyclical downturns tend to land unevenly; this one is hitting almost everywhere.
The IFS flags two potential structural culprits worth watching: the rapid uptake of artificial intelligence in white-collar entry-level work, and the well-documented decline in youth mental health. Business Matters has previously reported on how AI and rising employer costs have already wiped out close to a third of UK entry-level vacancies since the launch of ChatGPT, a shift that disproportionately closes the door on first jobs.
On the minimum wage question, a long-standing battleground in the youth employment debate, the IFS is more cautious. Its central estimates do not point to a “sizeable effect” from recent wage floor increases, suggesting that broader structural factors are doing most of the heavy lifting.
Jonathan Townsend, UK chief executive at The King’s Trust, which co-funded the report, said the findings should sharpen minds in both Whitehall and the boardroom.
“These findings should concern anyone who cares about young people’s futures,” he said. “Too many young people are already out of work, education or training, and this analysis suggests we cannot simply assume the problem will correct itself as economic conditions improve.”
“This challenge is not impossible to fix. The message is that reversing the rise in young people out of work or education will take concerted action, a better understanding of what is driving it, and the right support for young people at the right time.”
Townsend added: “For an organisation whose vision is to help end youth unemployment, that is a clear call to action. We urgently need to understand what is pulling more young people away from work and education.”
The Government has begun moving in that direction, most recently with £3,000 grants for employers willing to hire unemployed young people who have spent at least six months on benefits. Whether such targeted subsidies are enough to offset what looks increasingly like a structural shift, driven by automation, wage costs and a generation’s fragile mental health, is the question the IFS has now put squarely on ministers’ desks.
For Britain’s SMEs, which collectively employ the lion’s share of young workers, the message is sobering. A generation locked out of the labour market today will be a smaller, less productive, less confident pool of talent tomorrow. The cost of inaction, the IFS suggests, will be paid not in a single Budget cycle but over the working lifetime of an entire cohort.
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Youth jobs in retreat: IFS warns Britain is sliding back to Covid-era lows
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Tracy Morgan is sharing the brutal details of the fatal car crash with friends after they were hit by a Walmart truck.
Morgan, 57, sat down with Saturday Night Live’s Marcello Hernández for Variety & CNN’s Actors on Actors episode that was released on Wednesday, June 10. In the conversation, the Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins star recalled getting into an accident with friends Ardie Fuqua and the late James McNair, who was killed in the crash.
Back in 2014, Morgan was riding in a limousine with Fuqua and McNair — who also went by the stage name Jimmy Mack — down the New Jersey Turnpike after finishing up a comedy show.
“We did a show together that night in Delaware, and we got hit. That truck was doing 70 miles per hour with 85,000 pounds of frozen food in the back,” Morgan recalled. “And my friend Jimmy Mack — God bless — his neck was broke so bad his face was on his back.”
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The topic of the crash came up after Hernández, 28, mentioned that he was friends with Fuqua, 55, who has been a longtime pal of Morgan. Morgan shared that the standup was one of the passengers in the limo crash and also suffered from serious injuries.
“That’s my guy. He was in the accident with me. He was in a coma for 20 days,” Morgan said of Fuqua. “I was in it for 10 days.”
Hernández replied, “I speak for all of us when I say we are so happy and so blessed that you’re here, man.”
Morgan expressed his gratitude for Hernández’s sentiments and revealed that SNL boss Lorne Michaels reached out to Morgan’s ex-wife, Sabina, to check on his condition after the wreck. (Morgan and Sabrina were high school sweethearts who were married from 1987 to 2009. Sabrina died in 2016 following a battle with cancer.)
“Lorne must have called my ex-wife about a thousand times to see if I was out the coma,” he recalled.
Not only was Morgan placed in a medically induced coma at the time of the incident, but he sustained multiple injuries including a shattered femur, broken nose, a traumatic brain injury and several broken ribs. After Morgan awoke, the comedian underwent months of physical therapy and rehabilitation so he could learn how to walk and talk again.
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The truck driver pleaded not guilty to criminal charges. An investigation conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board found that the driver had been on the road for 13 and a half hours. (The legal limit for a truck driver’s work day is 14 hours.)
Morgan ultimately sued Walmart for negligence. The parties settled the lawsuit in 2015 for an undisclosed amount. The Saturday Night Live alum hinted on Wednesday that he got a generous payment.
“You know why we do comedy? Necessity. But once you make it, then you surround yourself with people that need to do this as a necessity. You might not have no bills to pay, because you made it. But they got bills to pay, so they got to be funny,” he said. “I got hit by a Walmart truck, so with the money I got, I don’t need to do this. But I surround myself with people that need to do this and love it.”
© Jason Mendez/Getty Images for PENCIL
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