A damning report by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has found 62% of employers felt that young people were ‘less ready to excel’ at work when compared to older generations.

The findings come as 981,000 young people aged 16 to 24 are not in education, employment or training (NEET), up by 30,000 this time last year.

A DWP commissioned survey of 500 employers based on phone interviews about their views on hiring young people found the ‘main challenge’ was a ‘perceived lack of soft skills and work readiness’, with 41% citing it as a concern, while motivation and timekeeping were also cited as a problem.

But there was no mention in the research of the impact of the covid pandemic which shut schools for months at a critical time for young people and how it shaped their work expectations.