NETER labour market measure for people aged 50 to state pension age, Digi Mart USA News (United Kingdom): Andy Burnham’s political philosophy embraces devolution, and the Prime Minister has outlined ambitions for good economic growth in every postcode of the UK. This is to be achieved through a rewiring of the state, with more government departments moving out of Westminster and a major expansion of powers for English regional mayors and strategic authorities.
The Prime Minister’s philosophy holds that economic growth and public renewal cannot be successfully ordered from the top down in Westminster, but must be nurtured from the bottom up based on regional realities. That relies on regional and local leaders understanding their local economies and using the right approaches to tap unrealised potential.
There are many ways to measure local economic progress. GDP, employment rates, poverty rates and median income per capita are all important pieces of the puzzle.
There are also measures for specific phases of life: child poverty for children, NEETs for young people and pensioner poverty for pensioners. The government’s current priority on the NEET crisis shows the value of age-focused employment measures, and monitoring that figure has alerted the government to the need to act.
At Ageing Better, the Centre for Ageing Better believes there is a gap in understanding and measurement for midlife. It has developed NETER to describe people aged 50 to state pension age who are not in employment, education, training or retirement.
For this group, employment and unemployment rates do not tell the full story. Lower employment rates among older people are often assumed to reflect retirement, and lower unemployment rates may suggest strong labour market outcomes, but a closer look at NETER data, nationally and regionally, shows this is not the case.
The Centre for Ageing Better estimates that the NETER category accounts for almost 3 million people across the UK. Regional breakdowns show clear differences at the local level.
The North East, North West, London and the West Midlands have the highest NETER rates, with more than one in five people aged 50 to state pension age not in employment, training, education or retirement. This suggests that in these areas older workers need particularly strong and tailored support in the labour market.
Looking beyond headline rates helps reveal the different factors driving economic inactivity in different places. The North has the highest rates of long-term illness and disability, while London and the West Midlands have above-average rates of caring and unemployment.
Understanding the reasons behind NETER figures in each region will be key to finding the right solutions. The analysis also shows that in some English regions, the chances of being NETER for people aged 50 to state pension age are almost twice as high as the chances of being NEET for people aged 16 to 24.
While regional authorities should be responding to the NEET challenge, the article argues there also needs to be a proportionate response for other age groups similarly vulnerable to weak labour markets, ageism and the threat of AI. Focusing solely on NEETs, driven by central government’s priority, will not deliver localised economic growth.
Lessons can be drawn from how local areas are responding to the NEET challenge. Some councils have developed their own ways of using local data to identify those most at risk of becoming NEET, intervene earlier and target support at the young people who need it most.
NETER data, the article suggests, should be embedded in the evidence used to set local priorities, from the employment and skills plans drawn up by Mayoral Combined Authorities to the work councils and other local partners do to shape Local Skills Improvement Plans.
The data can then inform decisions about who local employment programmes need to reach, where skills and retraining provision is falling short, and where employment support needs to connect better with health, disability or caring services. NETER can also help places judge whether their choices are delivering results.
Tracking the rate and its underlying causes over time would show whether investment is reducing the barriers keeping people out of work, and where resources may need to be redirected. Only by publishing and monitoring the NETER figure regularly, the article argues, can each region understand the scale of the problem, its specific local causes and whether remedies are working.
NETER rates should provide strong evidence for how local policymakers organise their budgets, especially as the Prime Minister plans to devolve more powers to local government. Close analysis of these rates could also show where investment is needed in caring, in policies to help people with long-term illness and disability get into and stay in work, and in better income support for those unable to work for any reason.
The article was written by Ryan Heasman, economics and research analysis at the Centre for Ageing Better.
