TVETipedia Glossary

Youth not in employment, education or training (NEET)

This indicator presents the share of young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET), as a percentage of the total number of young people in the corresponding age group, by gender. Young people in education include those attending part-time or full-time education, but exclude those in non-formal education and in educational activities of very short duration. Employment is defined according to the OECD/ILO Guidelines and covers all those who have been in paid work for at least one hour in the reference week of the survey or were temporarily absent from such work. Therefore NEET youth can be either unemployed or inactive and not involved in education or training. Young people who are neither in employment nor in education or training are at risk of becoming socially excluded – individuals with income below the poverty-line and lacking the skills to improve their economic situation.

Source:
OECD Data

The indicator presents the share of young people who are neither in education and training nor in employment, as a percentage of the total number of young people in the corresponding age group. Young people in education include those attending part-time as well as full-time education, but exclude those in non-formal education and in educational activities of very short duration. Employment is defined according to the ILO Guidelines and covers all those who have been in paid work for at least one hour in the reference week of the survey or were temporarily absent from such work.

Source:
OECD Factbook 2014: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics

The indicator young people neither in employment nor in education and training, abbreviated as NEET, corresponds to the percentage of the population of a given age group and sex who is not employed and not involved in further education or training. The numerator of the indicator refers to persons meeting these two conditions:

they are not employed (i.e. unemployed or inactive according to the International Labour Organisation definition);
they have not received any education or training in the four weeks preceding the survey.

The denominator is the total population of the same age group and sex, excluding the respondents who have not answered the question 'participation to regular education and training'.

Source:
European Commission, Education and training glossary, (accessed 01/2016)
European Commission, Education and training glossary, (accessed 01/2016)
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The Glossary contains short definitions of all terms used in 'Statistics Explained'. Statistics Explained is:
* an encyclopaedia on European Union statistics;
* a portal to further information for occasional and for regular users;
* a statistical glossary.

Young people neither in employment nor in education and training (NEET) – calculated as the percentage of the population of a given age group (usually 15-24) who are not employed and not involved in further education or training.

Source:
Cedefop, Glossary. Terminology of European education and training policy, (accessed 03/2023)
Cedefop, Glossary. Terminology of European education and training policy, (accessed 03/2023)
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This multilingual glossary (provided in a multitude of European languages) defines a selection of key terms used in European education and training policy. It is a revised and expanded version of the “Terminology of European education and training policy – A selection of 130 key terms” (2014). It considers new priorities of European Union policy, mainly concerning skills intelligence and employment. New definitions have been developed in collaboration with the experts of Cedefop’s departments VET and Skills and VET and Qualifications.