// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
Burnham says youth employment and training crisis is a 'moral failure'
Britain needs to "invest in the success of our young people", Andy Burnham says
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has warned the UK faces an "economic catastrophe and moral failure" due to the nearly one million young people not in education, employment or training.
Writing in the Times newspaper, external, Burnham has laid out his case for the government to "invest in the success of our young people" rather than "pay for failure through the benefits system".
"Benefits will become the backstop, not the starting point," Burnham wrote in his piece published in Monday's paper.
Later this week, the government is expected to announce plans to give young people thousands of job opportunities. The Conservative Party has labelled the government's youth employment strategy "a disaster".
According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, there are almost a million people aged 16 to 24 known as Neets - not in education, employment or training.
In his opinion column, the prime minister said this reflected a "generation being denied its chance to get on in life".
"This is an economic catastrophe and a moral failure. And it must change," he wrote.
Burnham said two years of Covid lockdowns, social media that erodes "confidence and sense of belonging", an education system focused on the "university route", job markets with "too few opportunities" and failures of previous governments have all contributed to the Neets crisis.
"Today, the welfare system provides an assessment, a payment and, after that, goodbye," Burnham wrote. "Too often there is no support, no offer of skills and no opportunity to get a job."