‘I just got AI emails rejecting my application – or no reply at all’: this is the soul-crushing reality of being a Neet | John Harris

Alan Milburn describes them as a ‘lost generation’. Those I spoke to just want to know what they have to do to finally get a job – and a chance in life

Callum Atkinson is 23 years old, and lives in the Greater Manchester town of Rochdale. Until very recently, he was one of hundreds of thousands of young people in the UK reckoned not to be in education, employment or training: what officialspeak rather coldly terms a Neet, and therefore part of a huge national problem being investigated by the former New Labour high-up Alan Milburn, whose final report on young people and work is due any day now, and will be a big, hyped-up political event.