For the first time in roughly 100 years, British parents and grandparents are expressing widespread fear that their children and grandchildren will not achieve a better standard of living than they did, says a senior government adviser leading a review into youth unemployment.
This is according to Alan Milburn, the former Labour health secretary now serving as the UK’s work tsar and chairing a government-commissioned review on youth unemployment and economic inactivity, highlighted the shifting generational expectations in comments to Times Radio on Thursday (26 February).
“There’s a broader fear that parents and grandparents have, that their kids … are not going to do as well as we’ve done. That’s the first time that’s really happened in a century,” Milburn said. “I think people feel that the social contract that we’ve had in society, that each generation would do better than the next, is now being broken.”
Milburn tied this pessimism to mounting challenges facing young people, including difficulties securing decent jobs, owning a home, the influence of social media, and the looming impact of artificial intelligence on entry-level and even graduate employment. He warned that AI could make this problem five-fold worse without intervention.
Almost 1 million NEETs
The remarks come as fresh Office for National Statistics (ONS) data released Thursday showed the number of NEETs – young people aged 16-24 not in education, employment, or training – climbing to 957,000 in the final quarter of 2025, up 11,000 from the previous quarter and approaching the symbolically grim one million mark. The NEET rate stood at 12.8% of the age group.
The rise was driven primarily by higher unemployment, with 411,000 young people out of work and actively seeking jobs, an increase of 45,000 from the prior quarter and marking an 11-year high for youth unemployment. Inactivity among the group fell slightly, but unemployment among young women rose sharply.
Economists and business groups have pointed to several contributing factors, including recent government policies such as higher employer national insurance contributions and the equalization of minimum wage rates across age groups, which some argue have made hiring younger workers riskier or more expensive.
Others cite the rapid adoption of AI and automation displacing entry-level roles, with companies like Ocado and WPP announcing job cuts partly linked to technological restructuring.
Milburn’s review, set to report in the summer of 2026, is examining the root causes of youth unemployment and inactivity. He emphasised the need to minimise risks for employers hiring young people, who are often seen as unproven, and to maximise incentives.
He also noted a related phenomenon: many young adults remaining in or returning to the family home, what he called the ‘House of Mum and Dad’, which can reduce the urgency to find work. “Sometimes even when kids leave they boomerang around back,” Milburn said.
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