Not Working, Not Worthless, Not Forgotten

As tabloid headlines go, it’s cruel and unsparing: 1m kids stuck on scrapheap, with the byline “Lost generation fear for 16 to 24-year-olds.

The astonishing result of the Gorton and Denton by-election was too late for the Metro, the free daily handed out to commuters, and so it directed its focus on the astonishing number of NEETS, young people "Not in Education, Employment, or Training," now edging towards one million according to the Office for National Statistics.

That’s one in seven of our young people.

There’s all kinds of reasons, of course: a weak job market, lack of suitable housing, mental health issues and a myriad of social trends.

One problem, certainly from my perspective, is that such NEETS are mostly out of sight. I don’t see any in any of the churches I help support, very few of that age bracket do the ParkRun and no longer do we stand in bus queues.

An independent enquiry examining the rise in young people not working or studying is under way, with its conclusions due to be published in the summer. Former Labour Health Secretary Alan Milburn, who is heading it up, said when the inquiry launched that he would approach the issue "with sensitivity".

He comments: "It's not young people's failure ... It's the system's failure, both in the labour market and in the schools, skills, employment support, mental health and welfare system that is letting young people down."

But going back to basics: is this a problem? Or more precisely, what kind of problem?

The large number of NEETS is usually seen as a drain on the economy – but in fact, the reality is that today’s economy, more than doubled since my ordination, can support such numbers. There were no NEETS in my era: very few parents then had the resources or even the space to support their older children.

Even more so as AI gets going. Just this morning we read that Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey says his technology firm s laying off almost half its workforce because artificial intelligence "fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company."

Strangely all this was foreseen 49 years ago, almost to the day, at my very first synod, the Bootle Deanery Synod which according to my old Filofax (remember Filofax?) took place on 17th February, 1977 at Hatton Hill church hall. We addressed the prospect of the collapse of work. (It was probably the only imaginative Deanery Synod throughout my entire ministry!)

It all seems so quaint now – but computers were just beginning to enter the workplace bringing huge gains in productivity. This would mean, as we then thought, that soon they would take over with the result that the average working week would shrink to just a few hours.

So, the argument continued, we would be faced with a massive expansion in our leisure hours. How would we cope? And how should the church respond?

I remember then some of the arguments from the “End of work” movement, popular at the time. Essentially we would no longer be defined by the job we did but how we related to our fellow citizens. The challenge for the church was to model a community of service.

I’m about to read Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning. It’s there on the coffee table, next in the queue. His core argument, the blurb tells me, is that our fundamental need as human beings is to discover our purpose, why we are here, even in extreme suffering.

Essentially we find our purpose, even our central meaning as a human being — this is me now, not Frankl — in our relationships, and we find meaning in our relationships through our relationship with God, enabled by Jesus, his death and resurrection and his gift of the Holy Spirit.  Here is my core identity.

That is who I am, a child of God, a disciple of Jesus. And I refuse to be defined by my postal code, the car I drive or the job I do. My worth cannot ultimately rest on productivity alone.

And maybe that is the insight the 1970s were trying, imperfectly, to prepare us for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.  Just one example: here in Ormskirk seven banks have closed just in the last five years.  I’m guessing: fifty jobs disappeared, just like that!

So to describe anyone who is NEET as on the scrapheap is not only profoundly demeaning but simply wrong. Of course, there are many young people who need our support, our friendship, but there may be very good reasons why they are not in education, employment or training.

Perhaps the real challenge is not simply to move young people back into work, but to rethink what we mean by participation in society altogether. If artificial intelligence and automation reshape employment as dramatically as many predict, then the question facing us is larger than economics.

How do we build communities where people belong before they achieve, where contribution is wider than paid employment, and where dignity is not earned but recognised?

The church, at its best, has always known the answer lies in relationship — noticing those who are invisible, welcoming those who feel surplus to requirements, and affirming that every life carries God-given value.

A generation does not need pity or panic headlines. It needs purpose, belonging, and hope.