ALMOST a million young people remain out of work, education or training, official figures showed yesterday, as the TUC warned that undermining workers’ rights only holds back their prospects.

There were an estimated 981,000 so-called Neets aged 16 to 24 between April and June, according to the Office for National Statistics — down 30,000 on the previous quarter but still 30,000 higher than a year ago.

The figure had passed one million earlier this year for the first time in more than a decade.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak called it a “crisis which has been a decade in the making,” warning it will “take time to turn around.”

“The evidence is crystal clear — good-quality employment support, more good training places and a strong growing economy with more vacancies is what we need,” he said.

“Holding down workers’ rights will only hold back young people’s employment prospects.

“That’s why the Prime Minister must keep going with measures to support young people into good quality work — including by delivering rights to guaranteed hours in full and ending the scourge of insecure work.”

He said that while the government’s job guarantee is “an important step forward too,” he urged ministers to “put the turbo boosters on the scheme by expanding places and ending the 18-month wait.”

“We know that early experience of good-quality, paid work can make a huge difference to young people’s prospects across their lifetimes,” Mr Nowak said.

Chris Goulden, of the Youth Futures Foundation, said the figures were “a stark reminder that … the youth employment challenge remains a large, long-term problem,” warning of “long-term scarring effects” on young people’s wellbeing and earning prospects.

Mencap chief executive Jon Sparkes said young people were “not work-shy,” but that “the systems around them” were failing to meet their ambitions, noting only around one in four adults with a learning disability has a paid job.

And Sam Tims of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said the figures reflected “an economy that leaves young people behind,” adding that growing up in persistent poverty “more than triples the risk of being out of work or learning.”

Alan Milburn, whose government-commissioned review on youth unemployment is due imminently, said: “Nearly one million young lives on hold is a scar on this country.

“Young people are desperate for an opportunity to learn or earn. Instead, we’re creating a lost generation.”