Recession fuels rise in number of jobless teens

More than one in 10 teenagers aged between 16 and 18 are not in school, college or work, according to official figures released yesterday.

They show that 18-year-olds are feeling the pinch from the recession more than any other age group, with a 16 per cent rise in the numbers officially recorded as having nothing to do.

Publication of the figures was greeted with claims that the situation was now "desperate" for young people seeking to enter the workforce.

Martina Milburn, the chief executive of the youth charity the Prince's Trust, said: "Too often young people leaving school with few qualifications face a downward spiral towards a loss of self-confidence and even crime, homelessness and drug use. Jobless teenagers will cost the state billions of pounds if we fail to help them into work, education or training. All of us will feel the impact."

Employment blackspots are in Yorkshire, Humberside and the East Midlands, with just 74 per cent of 17-year-olds in employment, training or education. Best off are those in London and the South-east, where the figure rises to 86 per cent.

Overall, 208,000 16- to 18-year-olds have slipped through the net. Among 18-year-olds, the figure is 113,560 or 16.6 per cent – a rise of 2.4 percentage points on last year's figures.

The figures are mainly accounted for by a slump in employment opportunities, particularly for 18-year-olds who might have left school to go into a job but now find themselves hit by redundancies. For those with fewer qualifications, employment opportunities are also drying up.

The numbers for each age group – 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds – who want to stay on in education and training are actually going up. Among 16-year-olds, the figure is 79.9 per cent, the highest on record. But the gloomy picture for 18-year-olds is likely to be exacerbated this autumn when thousands of them will be denied entry into universities.

Government ministers have allocated enough money for an extra 10,000 student places this autumn, but applications are set to rise by more than 50,000. The Government has blamed the rise in "Neets" – those not in education, employment or training – on "reduced employment".

The Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, deflected questions about how to tackle the shortage of university places by saying that it was up to the Business Secretary Peter Mandelson's new department – the name of which he at first forgot.

Case study: 'I couldn't find anything, lots of time I was just lounging around'

Keisha Tian Diacas admits she did not really pay attention while she was at school. As a result, the 17-year-old from Harrow, north west London, ended up as a Neet – teenagers who are 'not in full-time education, employment or training'. Keisha admits: "My GCSE results last year were not very good", so she decided to re-sit English, maths and ICT at a local college to gain better qualifications. College did not work out and she was "kicked out" in March. She decided to pursue a job in retail which she believed she could get without the qualifications, but by then the recession had kicked in and jobs were not available.

"I spent a lot of time looking for work but couldn't find anything. Lots of the time I was just lounging around," she said. But she ended up being one of the lucky ones: her mother spotted an article in a local newspaper about a course run by the youth charity The Prince's Trust, which helped her fill in her CV, arrange work experience postings and enabled her to take courses such as NVQs. She now hopes to start up her own nursery.