NEET

A NEET or neet is a young person who is "Not in Education, Employment, or Training". The acronym NEET was first used in the United Kingdom but its use has spread to other countries and regions including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States.

In the United Kingdom, the classification comprises people aged between 16 and 24 (some 16 and 17 year-olds are still of compulsory school age); the subgroup of NEETs aged 16–18 is frequently of particular focus. In Japan, the classification comprises people aged between 15 and 34 who are not employed, not engaged in housework, not enrolled in school or work-related training, and not seeking work.

NEET is to be distinguished from the newly coined NLFET rate used in the 2013 report on Global Employment Trends for Youth by the International Labour Organization. NLFET stands for "neither in the labour force nor in education or training". It is similar to NEET but it excludes the unemployed youth (who are part of the labour force).

Knowledge of the word spread after it was used in a 1999 report by the Social Exclusion Unit (SEU). Before this, the phrase "status zero" (or "Status Zer0"), which had an identical meaning, was used. Andy Furlong writes that the use of the term NEET became popular partly because of the negative connotations of having "no status". The classification is specifically redefined in other local government papers, such as "respondents who were out of work or looking for a job, looking after children or family members, on unpaid holiday or traveling, sick or disabled, doing voluntary work or engaged in another unspecified activity"; the acronym, however, has no agreed definition with respect to measurement, particularly in relation to defining economic inactivity. Karen Robson writes that the classification has "virtually usurped discussions of "youth unemployment" in the UK literature". Scott Yates and Malcolm Payne say that initially there was a "holistic focus" on the NEET group by policy-makers which looked at the problems young people went through, but this changed as the NEET status became framed in negative terms—"as reflective of a raft of risks, problems and negative orientations on the part of young people". NEET figures for England are published by the Department for Education (DfE). The methodology used in calculating the number of NEETs aged 16–18 is different from that used for those aged 16–24. The first relies on a range of sources, the second on the Labour Force Survey.

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