Employers stand ready to help solve the NEETs crisis – if government will let them

The government is making promises on jobs that only employers can keep. But Greene King has proved hiring the most hard-to-reach groups can make sound commercial sense, say Georgiana Bristol and Andrew Bush Alan Milburn’s review, due later this month, is expected to give Britain a serious plan for the almost 1m young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). His youth guarantee is set to be delivered through local participation systems modelled on the Dutch “youth points”, tackling inactivity early and in person before a young person drifts onto benefits for good. The weak point sits on the other side of the table, because a guarantee of a job, training place or apprenticeship is a promise the state can make and only employers can keep. The Netherlands has a NEET rate of 4.1 per cent against our 13.5 per cent, and its youth points work partly because there is an employer waiting at the end of the process. Without that hiring capacity, local hubs here risk be