27 Young Migrants Hired for Every Young Briton in UK Since 2020: Report

More than two dozen non-European Union migrants under the age of 25 have been hired for every Briton in the same age bracket in the UK since 2020, according to a report by British think tank the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) published on May 28.

The analysis found that 27 young people who have arrived from nations outside the EU had been given a job in Britain for every single vacancy taken by young UK citizens.

That marks a rise of 355 percent since January 2020 for non-EU migrants below the age of 25, while the young British workforce grew by just 0.3 percent over the same time frame, CSJ found.

CSJ conducted its analysis using new payroll data from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the British equivalent of the U.S. IRS, which shows that the number of non-EU migrants on payrolls aged under 25 rose from 82,000 in January 2020 to 370,000 in December 2025, amounting to an increase of 290,000 people on payroll.

Over the same period, the number of British nationals under 25 on payrolls went up by just 11,000, while the number of under 25s not in employment, education, or training shot up by almost 200,000.

Conservative MP and CSJ founder Iain Duncan Smith said that young people in Britain “have endless potential and yet the choices made by governments of all stripes have locked so much of it away.”

Duncan Smith, who served as secretary of state for work and pensions between 2010 and 2016, argued that “common sense policies” would start to turn around this situation, which he called a “crisis,” but said that the “political gravity” in the UK was pulling the current government away from implementing them.

As examples of areas requiring reform, he cited the sickness benefit scheme, immigration, and the university system.

“It’s time to be bold. Or we risk losing an entire generation,” he said.

The CSJ report was published the same day that a separate report commissioned by the British government concluded that the situation facing young people in the UK risks a “lost generation.”

That report, overseen by former Labour MP Alan Milburn, found that 1 in 6 young people in Britain may find themselves not in employment, education, or training within 5 years, up from 1 in 8 now.

The number of under-25s in that situation reached its highest since late 2013 in the first quarter of this year at just over 1 million, or 13.5 percent of the age group, up from 12.5 percent a year earlier, new official figures on Thursday showed.

“Detachment is no longer temporary. For too many young people it is becoming permanent. We are at risk of a lost generation,” Milburn said.

Speaking at a press conference, he said the issue was “probably the most significant challenge facing our country today,” and public concern about the issue was the most visceral of any topic he had dealt with in his career.

Milburn’s report blamed Britain’s welfare system for “exacerbating inactivity.” But it also highlighted a sharp drop in the number of low- and medium-skilled entry-level jobs—including part-time weekend jobs for school-age children—despite buoyancy in the broader labour market for much of the past decade.

Some 60 percent of those classified as NEETs have never had a job, up from 40 percent two decades ago, while more than 70 percent lack good school grades.

It also found that 15 percent of NEETS have a university degree, while 44 percent say poor health limits their ability to work, up from 26 percent 10 years ago.

While the direct cost of NEETs to the UK welfare system is 3.2 billion pounds ($4.3 billion) a year, getting them all into full-time work would boost the economy by 38 billion pounds ($50 billion), according to the report, while the annual cost of foregone growth could be as high as 125 billion pounds ($168 billion) if it marked the start of a lifetime out of work.

Throughout most of recent history, Britain has had fairly low youth unemployment by European standards, but since the COVID-19 pandemic, the proportion of under-25s out of work or education has risen to one of the highest in Europe, according to analysis by the Resolution Foundation.

The Epoch Times contacted the UK Home Office for comment, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Reuters contributed to this report.