Youth unemployment rates are typically higher than the unemployment rates of older people, even in times of economic growth, because young people tend to have less work experience and a more limited professional network to rely on for their job search.

Economic downturns, such as the global financial crisis in 2009 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, also tend to have a strong impact on young people’s ability to find or stay in work. They are often the first ones to lose their jobs during such downturns as they are more likely to have temporary contracts and fewer company-specific skills.

Individual characteristics, such as low education, economic hardship, migration background, and health or social problems can also pose additional challenges for them to enter and remain in employment.

The NEET rate measures the share of young people who are not in employment, education, or training. They can be either unemployed (i.e., without a job but actively looking for one) or inactive (i.e., not actively seeking employment). On average across the OECD, about 12.5% of young people between 15 and 29 years are not in employment, education, or training.

As NEETs are at risk of becoming socially excluded, understanding their profiles can help policymakers to design better policies and programmes, as well as to improve the school-to-work transition.

The OECD, in cooperation with the ILO, supports the G20 in the area of jobs and labour market policies by identifying relevant policy responses and a more inclusive type of economic growth.

Across the OECD, about 12% of young people between 18 and 25 years old live in relative poverty, compared to 11% for the total population.

Young people can face significant income volatility during the transition from education to work, for example due to temporary contracts, low-paid jobs, a high risk of dismissal, and periods of unemployment. It becomes problematic when they cannot rely on financial support from their families and have limited savings. 

Experiencing poverty early on in one’s career can have long-lasting impacts on their life-time employment and earnings prospects. It can trap young people into low-paid and low-quality jobs, unemployment, underemployment and inactivity, without the opportunity to continue or return to education and break the vicious circle.