The government's jobs tsar has warned that Britain faces an 'economic catastrophe' as young people have been 'rewired' by smartphones, leading to a surge in economic inactivity among 16 to 24-year-olds.
Alan Milburn's stark warning
Alan Milburn, appointed by Sir Keir Starmer as chairman of the Young People and Work Report, described the situation as dire. His interim report, due next week, highlights that hundreds of thousands of young people are not in education, employment, or training (NEETs). The former health secretary told The Times that the 'rising tide of mental ill-health, anxiety, depression, neurodiversity' is the primary driver of high economic inactivity.
'They are not snowflakes or faking it,' Milburn said, but he linked these issues to growing up in a digital age dominated by social media. 'The system is trapping people in worklessness rather than enabling them into work. We're at a risk of just writing a whole generation off.'
The 'bedroom generation'
The research describes a 'bedroom generation' of young people who left school at 16 and have spent months or even years at home, largely online. 'They are on all the time, they're never off,' Milburn added. 'Social media is leading to some evidence of functional impairment, changing their sleep patterns, concentration levels. That is having an impact on their ability to work.'
Milburn insisted that these young people are not a 'soft generation' but an 'anxious generation.' The report warns that the welfare state was 'built for a different era and must change now if we are to avoid a generational, societal and economic catastrophe.'
Stark statistics
Between January and March this year, 729,000 young people aged 16 to 24 were unemployed, an increase of 110,000 from the previous year. The total number of NEETs reached 957,000 between October and December 2025, according to the Office for National Statistics.
If the problem is not addressed, young people could be stuck on benefits for life, impacting economic growth. The report recommends that getting a diagnosis for anxiety, depression, ADHD, or autism should not automatically lead to dropping out of the workforce.
Social media and quitting culture
A separate report published earlier this week, which will form part of the Milburn review, identified social media as a driver of 'quitting culture' among young people. It found that 'the promotion of online success leads to a quitting culture if things take time' and warned that school has become a 'NEET pipeline,' with exam pressure 'consuming most of secondary school' and a lack of further or higher education opportunities beyond university.
Peter Hyman, co-author of 'Inside the Mind of a Young Neet,' said: 'The tragedy is that young people have so much potential, many of them are doing extraordinary things on the side, but their lives are filled with too many obstacles, too much heartache and too little agency.'
