Why Can't UK Kids Get a Job? What the Dutch Can Teach Us About Work

A Lost Generation or a Lesson from Europe? Rethinking How We Launch Our Youth

Britain has a problem with its young people. Right now, nearly one in eight 16 to 24-year-olds - almost a million individuals - are not in education, employment, or training. They are what the statisticians call NEET. In the world of work, they are nowhere to be seen.

This puts the UK at the bottom of the table. We have the highest rate of youth worklessness among all the major rich countries. It is not just a sad story for the teenagers and young adults involved; it is a disaster for the country’s future. The Treasury has calculated that if we could get our young people into work at the same rate as the Netherlands does, it would add an astonishing £86bn to the economy by 2050.

So, what does the Netherlands do that we don’t? And why are British kids being left behind while Dutch teenagers are building their futures?

The Simple Mechanics of Getting a First Job

To understand the problem, we have to look at the basic rules of the job market. Getting your first job is hard. You have no experience, no references, and you need to be trained. From an employer’s point of view, hiring a teenager is a risk and an investment.

The Dutch government understands this. So, they have a simple rule: if you are young, you cost less. In the Netherlands, the minimum wage for an 18-year-old is half of what you have to pay a worker over 21. This is not because the Dutch hate young people. It is because they want businesses to hire them. It makes financial sense for a shop owner, a cafe manager, or a warehouse supervisor to give a teenager a chance. They get cheap labour, and the teenager gets something far more valuable: a line on their CV, a habit of showing up on time, and a reference for the future.

Dutch kids often start working 12 hours a week while they are still in school. By the time they leave education, they are already “work-ready.” They understand the basic stuff that no school teaches you: how to talk to a boss, how to deal with a difficult customer, and how to work as part of a team.

How Britain is Making It Harder

Now, look at what is happening in Britain. Over the last year or so, the government has been pushing up the minimum wage for young people very rapidly. In April 2025, it went up by over 16%. Next month, it is going up again by another 8.5%. The goal is to pay young people more, which sounds fair.

But the effect is the opposite of what was intended. When you force employers to pay an inexperienced 18-year-old almost the same as a proven 21-year-old, you remove the incentive to take a risk. If you have a limited budget for wages, who are you going to hire? The safe bet is the older worker. The teenager gets left out.

On top of that, new laws have made hiring more risky. The Employment Rights Act means that from the day they start, an employee has rights to sick pay and union protections. For a small business owner, taking on a teenager now feels less like hiring help and more like taking on a permanent legal responsibility. The traditional industries that used to give kids their start - like shops, pubs, and restaurants, are now cutting back on hiring. The jobs that were once the first rung on the ladder are disappearing.

The Result: A Lost Generation

When a young person misses out on work, it does not just mean they have less spending money. It creates a permanent scar. Studies show that a 22-year-old who has never worked can end up over a million pounds worse off over their lifetime compared to someone who started a job at 18. They miss the crucial years where they are supposed to learn how work works.

And because we have no system to catch them, they often just drift. The education system kicks them out, and the welfare system picks them up, but there is nothing in between. There are no early warning systems and no one is stepping in to help. The government’s new “jobs guarantee” scheme only offers 55,000 places, and only for those who have already been on benefits for 18 months. By that time, the damage is already done.

How the Dutch System Actually Works

The Dutch do not just rely on the lower wage to fix everything. They have built an entire system around the idea that getting a job is a normal part of growing up.

For a start, they treat vocational education as a proper path. Over half of young people in the Netherlands go into a system that combines work and study. They might spend three or four days a week in an actual job and one or two days in a classroom. This is not like a British apprenticeship that can be hard to find and poorly organised. It is a standard, accepted route.

In the Netherlands, it is considered normal for local businesses to work with schools. Employers see it as part of their job to help train the next generation. It is not seen as a burden or a charity case; it is seen as common sense. You need future workers, so you help create them.

What We Could Do Differently

Fixing this mess does not require a revolution. It requires us to be honest about how the job market actually works.

First, we need to slow down the increases to the youth minimum wage. If we price young people out of jobs, we are not helping them. We are hurting them. A lower wage for beginners is not exploitation; it is an entry ticket. It is the price of getting a chance to prove yourself.

Second, we need to make it much easier and more attractive for businesses to take on young people. That might mean tax breaks for companies that hire apprentices, or simpler rules for small businesses that want to take on a Saturday kid. We have to stop treating every hiring decision like a major legal risk.

Third, we need to build proper bridges between schools and the workplace. That means proper careers advice, not just a tick-box exercise. It means pushing local firms to partner with local schools. It means making the vocational route as respected and common as the academic one.

The Dutch are not magical. They just decided a long time ago that it is better to have young people inside the workforce learning than outside it, waiting. Until Britain makes the same choice, we will keep producing a generation of kids who are ready for nothing, while the jobs they could have done go unfilled, and the economy loses billions. It is a choice between helping them get started or leaving them behind.