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A shock government-backed report this week warned of the danger of a “lost generation” of young people in Britain, as the number of 16- to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training (Neets) rose to more than 1 million.
According to official UK statistics, roughly 13.5% of young people are not in work or college. Among 18- to 24-year-olds the share rises to 15.8% – nearly one in six.
In the Netherlands, the equivalent figure has been below 5% for well over a decade. According to Eurostat, whose wider 15–29 age bracket produces a higher figure, the Dutch Neet rate was 5.3% last year.
The Resolution Foundation concluded in a recent report that if Britain could match the Dutch Neet rate, 600,000 more 18- to 24-year-olds would be learning or earning today.
Alan Milburn, the former Labour cabinet minister who authored the review, said Britain might not be able to copy directly from the Netherlands because traditions, cultures and structures were different. “But boy oh boy is there something to learn,” he added.
Recent comparative studies by independent thinktanks including the Resolution Foundation and the Youth Futures Foundation suggest the Netherlands’ Neet rate – the lowest in the EU and among OECD countries – is the result of decades-long policymaking.
The Dutch approach revolves around three pillars: vocational education; a welfare safety net prioritising engagement and rehabilitation; and financial incentives that make it worthwhile for businesses to hire young workers.
Educational retention is critical, researchers say. In the UK in 2024, 43% of 18- to 24-year-olds were in education, compared with 67% in the Netherlands. Among 18 year olds, the figures are 66% and 80%. By age 24, twice as many young people are in education in the Netherlands (43%) as in the UK (21%).
The type of education possibly matters more. Technical education is highly valued in the Netherlands: vocational secondary education (MBO) is the main supplier to the Dutch labour market and often called “the foundation of the economy”.
Nearly 70% of Dutch 16- to 19-year-olds in upper secondary education attend an MBO school, with 35% of under-25s studying at technical or professional universities later. In the UK, only 22% of 18- to 21-year-olds were on vocational courses in 2024.
Robbert Dijkgraaf, a former Dutch education minister and professor of science and society at the University of Amsterdam, said vocational education was crucial to helping people find their place in work and society.
“The Neet issue is also there in the Netherlands,” he said. “It is closely related to vocational training. We should look at all forms of tertiary education as equally important to society, and we should treat them in an equal way.
“Vocational education is not only there as a vessel for people to prepare them for society, for work – it’s often also a lifeboat,” he said, adding that the Dutch system combining four days of work with one day of vocational training was crucial.
Vocational schools worked closely with employers, he said, adding that one teacher who found a vulnerable student work in a shoe repair shop was told: “It’s so important for me to know that society sees the value of me. That there’s a need for me in society.”
Young people who were “skilled and smart” faced a seller’s market, Dijkgraaf said. But that was not the case for all. “I often joke that education is like finding the beginning of a roll of Scotch tape – very frustrating but if you have a beginning, you can just keep going.”
Vitally, Dutch vocational education is always combined with work-based learning or apprenticeships. By the age of 19, more than half of young Dutch people have workplace experience and therefore contacts, creating a fluid and cushioned transition from school to the labour market. In the UK, fewer than one in five have this experience.
The second major driver of the low Neet rate in the Netherlands was its welfare state, researchers said. The 2004 Work and Social Assistance Act radically devolved welfare and social assistance programmes to municipalities.
That structural shift has moved the focus from a centralised bureaucratic model to a personalised and localised system. The impact was particularly apparent in issues such as mental health and long-term illness, the Resolution Foundation noted.
Like their British counterparts, Dutch young people report some of the highest depression and anxiety rates in Europe. But that has not translated into poor participation outcomes.
In the UK, the researchers said, young people claiming incapacity benefits could be left without real institutional contact or work-related expectations for months, even years; in the Netherlands, local councils offered tailor-made engagement programmes with psychological help, subsidised employment and specialised training.
Tim Versnel, the head of employment at Rotterdam city council, said it had responded to a recent rise in youth unemployment with a more caring strategy and intensive courses. The council works with well-known local employers and a mentoring organisation to support chronically unemployed young people in particular, who often grew up with domestic violence or mental health issues.
“Our approach had been mostly geared towards education and finding a better way into the labour market,” Versnel said. “We’ve switched to a more caring approach: mental resilience training, help with substance use, financial literacy. A more whole-of-life approach, instead of specifically job training and applying for vacancies.”
The Rotterdam local government also funds up to 70% of the wages of young chronically unemployed people. “Basically, all aspects of life improve when someone works: mental stability, mental health, physical health, self-regard.”
Finally, the Dutch system recognises that a low Neet rate requires willing employers. While in the UK employers complain that entry-level workers are too expensive, the Netherlands has long used fiscal policy to in effect subsidise youth employment.
The Youth Futures Foundation highlights government schemes that have cut payroll taxes and given direct financial advantages to businesses taking on young workers.
The “premium subsidy for young workers”, for example, was worth €3,500 (£3,000) a year to employers hiring a young person on a contract of at least 32 hours a week. Its successor, the “labour cost advantage”, cuts wage costs through tax benefits of up to €6,000.
This costs money, of course: in 2011, the latest year for which UK data is available, Britain spent 0.5% of its GDP on active labour market policies and 0.01% on hiring incentives and employment subsidies, against 2.3% and 0.5% in the Netherlands.
Researchers said the important lessons from the Netherlands were that a low Neet rate would not be achieved through piecemeal measures or temporary grants but required a core alignment of the education system, welfare provision and business incentives.
“What is it fundamentally about?” Milburn said. “It’s about some structural things: they make a priority of vocational education and investment in it. The Dutch system is much more integrated, they pull together.
“And the final part that they seem to get right, that we get wrong, is that employers are much more engaged from the outset with the education system. So kids are getting familiarity with employers, with the world of work.”
