A million locked out. A quarter of a million needed.

Hi,

This is a one-off edition of the Brief, because one article this week got under my skin and would not leave.

Britain now has around a million young people not in education, employment or training. The shape of that number has changed too. Six in ten of them have never held a job of any kind, up from four in ten twenty years ago. This is no longer youth unemployment, which is recoverable. It is youth detachment, which is not, unless someone intervenes.

At the same time, my own sector cannot find people. Construction needs something close to a quarter of a million new workers by 2030. Thirty-five per cent of the workforce is over fifty. Fewer than one in five is under twenty-five.

Two crises. Same crisis, really, seen from opposite ends.

The Dutch worked this out

The Netherlands runs a youth inactivity rate under five per cent, against our fifteen. It is not because Dutch young people are healthier or happier. They report anxiety and low mood at rates close to ours. The difference is not the young people. It is the system that surrounds them.

Three things, working together.

They refuse to let anyone drift. A young person stays in education or training until they gain a qualification or turn eighteen. The design principle has a name that translates as "no dead ends". Inactivity is treated as a last resort, not a filing category.

They respect the vocational route and back it with real infrastructure. On their dual pathway, a student works four days a week at an approved company and studies one day at college. A real contract, real pay, a recognised qualification, and often a permanent job at the firm that trained them. Employers co-own the training rather than waiting for the state to hand them finished workers.

And they built a proper front door. One-stop youth points where a young person can walk in and get advice, a route, and a human being who follows up.

Why I take this personally

I spent three months working in the Netherlands for BAM, based between their offices in Gouda and The Hague. BAM is the ideal example precisely because it also operates across the UK. Same group, same pressures, different result. What struck me was not a special programme. It was the plain assumption that bringing a young person up to standard was part of the work, not a distraction from it.

I came away impressed, and slightly frustrated, because none of it looked like magic. It looked like choices.

The part I want to leave you with

We are not short of people who could do this here. Every firm reading this is full of experienced hands who learned the trade from someone and could teach it to someone else.

And a route into work is not a soft landing. The Dutch model is demanding. Support paired with obligation. Show up, graft, meet the standard. We do young people no favours by lowering the bar to get them through the door, because the thing that rebuilds someone who has never worked is being trusted with real work and held to a real standard.

Confidence is a by-product of competence. Competence is a by-product of hard work.

One million young people are outside the building. A quarter of a million jobs are waiting inside it. The bridge between those two numbers is not a policy. It is a person willing to show a young one how the work is done, and to expect them to do it well.

We have those people. We always did.

If this landed, reply and tell me how your firm brings young people through. I read every response.

Scott