Unlocking the potential of young people who are not employed, in education or in training
About 12% of Ontario’s youth are NEET – not in employment, education or training. Until now, little research has been done on the needs, perspectives and challenges faced by youth, or the costs associated with their disconnection from school and work.
The Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services engaged Blueprint to design and undertake a research project on NEET youth to help inform the development of policy and programs to serve this population.
Blueprint surveyed more than 900 NEET youth in the province to find out about their life circumstances, attitudes, goals and challenges. We also analyzed Statistics Canada surveys, government administrative data, and conducted focus groups with youth-serving agencies. We partnered with United Way Greater Toronto to engage community agencies in the focus groups and to administer the youth survey.
We found that the fiscal costs associated with the consequences of being NEET including health care, social assistance, homelessness and crime total $1.92 billion a year. The costs associated with foregone earnings of NEET youth total $6.4billion annually. These findings highlight the significant financial impact of NEET youth for the province of Ontario, as well as for NEET youth themselves.
While we found that many NEET youth face complex challenges, there is also huge social and economic potential that could be unlocked by better addressing and preventing these challenges. Investing time, effort and resources in improved policies and programs across multiple youth-serving sectors could generate significant social and economic benefits for all Ontarians.
About 12% of Ontario’s youth are NEET – not in employment, education or training. Until now, little research has been done on the needs, perspectives and challenges faced by youth, or the costs associated with their disconnection from school and work.
The Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services engaged Blueprint to design and undertake a research project on NEET youth to help inform the development of policy and programs to serve this population.
Blueprint surveyed more than 900 NEET youth in the province to find out about their life circumstances, attitudes, goals and challenges. We also analyzed Statistics Canada surveys, government administrative data, and conducted focus groups with youth-serving agencies. We partnered with United Way Greater Toronto to engage community agencies in the focus groups and to administer the youth survey.
We found that the fiscal costs associated with the consequences of being NEET including health care, social assistance, homelessness and crime total $1.92 billion a year. The costs associated with foregone earnings of NEET youth total $6.4billion annually. These findings highlight the significant financial impact of NEET youth for the province of Ontario, as well as for NEET youth themselves.
While we found that many NEET youth face complex challenges, there is also huge social and economic potential that could be unlocked by better addressing and preventing these challenges. Investing time, effort and resources in improved policies and programs across multiple youth-serving sectors could generate significant social and economic benefits for all Ontarians.
The Responsive Career Pathways Research Brief consolidates key findings from our past 9 research papers in partnership with the Future Skills Centre. In this brief, we outline key innovation challenges and opportunities for career guidance services in Canada, and highlight common barriers to accessing these services.
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Career guidance systems could be designed with a whole-of-person lens. This paper considers promising practices in breaking down barriers to career guidance for Canadians.
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Adult learners have to navigate an increasingly diverse, fragmented and complex education and training marketplace. This paper assesses options helping Canadian learners navigate their education and learning choices.
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The path to accessing career guidance is challenging for racialized people, women and newcomers to Canada. This paper offers opportunities to strengthen our publicly-funded employment systems to effectively address labour market inequity.
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Employers are critical in establishing more responsive career pathways for Canadians. This paper outlines some of the challenges and opportunities employers are facing related to the future of work and skills.
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Career development practitioners have a critical role to play in helping Canadians prepare for the future of work. This paper tackles questions about the role of career development practitioners and the evolution of their practice.
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Offering forward-looking, customized, high-quality and accessible career guidance to a wide range of Canadians is possible. This paper identifies behavioural and motivational barriers to accessing career guidance and offers a promising path ahead.
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The role and use of technologies that help individuals and career practitioners navigate career pathways are rapidly evolving. This paper outlines potential ways responsive career pathways can be enabled by technology.
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This document provides consistent definitions for the terms that are applied across all of the research papers for the Responsive Career Pathways initiative.
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This paper offers considerations for strengthening and aligning our careers and employment systems to better serve Canadians across their career trajectory.
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Finding ways to make labour market information accessible and useful for service providers and individuals is key for creating more responsive career pathways.
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