Virtual interviews young people face in today’s job market are not fit for purpose, Prime Minister Andy Burnham has argued, warning that screen-based hiring is filtering out passion and personality in favour of the formulaic answer.
‘One thing I really don’t like is this culture now of interviewing via Zoom or Teams,’ Burnham told the Jimmy’s Jobs of the Future podcast. ‘How does a young person shine in that situation?’
His concern is grounded in numbers that are hard to ignore. According to House of Commons Library analysis of ONS data, 1.01 million people aged 16 to 24 were not in education, employment or training (NEET) in the first quarter of 2026, representing 13.5% of that age group. It is the first time the NEET total has exceeded one million since 2013.
Without a change of direction, the Alan Milburn interim report published in May 2026 projects that figure rising to 1.25 million by 2031. Milburn warned of ‘a lost generation’ facing ‘a perfect storm’ of challenges, with one in six young people set to be out of work, education or training within five years unless action is taken.
A whole-system failure behind the NEET surge
Milburn’s review, launched by the government in November 2025, did not attribute the crisis to any single cause. The House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee, citing Milburn’s oral evidence and Resolution Foundation research published in April 2026, concluded that economic trends explained around half of the rise in the NEET rate. The rest corresponds closely to what Milburn called ‘broader health trends since the pandemic.’ He noted a 70% increase over the past decade in the number of NEETs with a work-limiting health condition.
Milburn’s own characterisation of the situation was blunt: ‘a whole system failure.’ A final report with policy recommendations is expected later in 2026.
Virtual interviews young people face collide with AI hiring at the worst moment
Into this already difficult landscape, technology is reshaping the front door to employment. According to LinkedIn data cited in the original reporting, 89% of UK recruiters plan to use more AI in their hiring processes this year. A separate LinkedIn post analysing UK recruitment trends puts the share of large companies already using AI to conduct interviews at 43%, though no primary source underpins that specific figure.
Young applicants have described the experience to the BBC as ‘robotic and brutal’: hundreds of applications sent, no response received. Burnham’s diagnosis matches: technology is not making recruitment fairer, it is rewarding those who give the formulaic answer.
‘How do you get over some of your personality, your passion?’ he asked. ‘It seems to me to then work against people who have that side to their character and work for those who are just giving the more formulaic answer.’
The Office for National Statistics tracks youth inactivity quarterly. Each successive release has shown the same direction of travel since the pandemic disrupted school-to-work transitions at scale.
Burnham’s proposed fixes: placements, shadowing, technical routes
The Prime Minister paired his critique with a set of practical proposals. Companies offering six-week work placements to teenagers, he said, could be prioritised for government contracts. He called for an expansion of 45-day placements to give 16 to 18-year-olds deeper exposure to employers.
Senior executives, Burnham argued, should open their diaries to young people who lack established contact networks, offering shadowing opportunities that credentials alone cannot replicate.
On Tuesday, he unveiled plans to open technical education routes to 14-year-olds, placing them on the same footing as traditional academic pathways. From Year 10, pupils would combine core subjects such as English and maths with technical education tied to jobs in their local area.
Whether any of that moves the NEET dial quickly enough is the harder question. With Milburn’s final report still to come and the LinkedIn AI recruitment data pointing only one direction, the 1.25 million projection for 2031 is the number that ought to concentrate minds in boardrooms as much as in government.
