The NEETEST youth: Not in employment, education or training, excluding short transitions

Recent evidence has pointed to a weakening (i.e., “slackening”) of the youth labour market, or indications that there are increasingly more young job seekers than there are jobs available for youth. Indeed, the September 2025 unemployment rate for youth (those aged 15 to 24 years) was 14.6%— the highest rate since September 2010 (excluding the COVID-19 pandemic years of 2020 and 2021). This reignites longstanding concerns associated with unproductive youth, who may be at risk for economic and social difficulties. On a broader scale, this situation may have long-term ramifications for the economy and society. A standard way of identifying at-risk youth is through the concept of “not in employment, education or training” (NEET). This measure is informative because it estimates the stock of at-risk youth over specified periods (often short), which could be closely correlated with time-varying determinants such as economic conditions. However, NEET is measured at a snapshot date (generally with the Labour Force Survey), which could capture short-term transitions between jobs or schooling (i.e., normal frictions in the labour market). Moreover, with few exceptions, youth who provide care for their own children or others are classified as NEET. Yet caregiving is often a form of paid employment, so it is clearly a form of productive activity. As such, caregiving (even if unpaid) could arguably be excluded from any measure of being potentially at risk for economic and social difficulties.