Establishing the Employment Gap

This report establishes for the first time an employment gap between young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and their better-off peers: disadvantaged young people are twice as likely to not be in employment, education or training (NEET). Looking at the regional breakdowns, we see that in the North of England, the situation is worse. We also discover that, somewhat surprisingly, qualifications can only explain half of this gap.

Our work with Impetus is part of NIESR’s ongoing research in the Centre for Vocational Education Research (CVER). CVER was launched in March 2015, funded by the Department for Education, to create a research institution that will advance our understanding of the requirements for vocational education in the UK today, identify the challenges in provision of vocational education, and develop and strengthen the knowledge-base to enable a more agile, relevant and needs-based vocational education sector to become a driving force for economic growth and social mobility, as it is in other countries.