One young person in ten is not in employment, education or training, according to stark figures released today by the government.
With unemployment predicted to rise by hundreds of thousands a month for the rest of the year, the prospects for Britain's youth has not looked so bleak since 1916, when they were called up en masse to be slaughtered on the Western Front.
The so-called 'neets' - an acronym representing 'Not Employable, Ever - Tough' - have been turned away from bulging universities, where students in overcrowded halls are facing the prospect of hot-bunking from September; while Tesco and Sainsbury's report that, since the ratio of shelf-stackers to shoppers is now 4:1, they are unable to fit any more low-paid staff into their aisles.
"Basically, the production lines of Britain's schools are still spewing out vast quantities of youngsters with GSCEs and A-levels coming out of their ears," said employment minister Jim Knight, "But we've run out of places to stash them. Even training schemes are no longer a solution, because employers have laid off all the trainers."
One potential option floated by the Department for Work and Pensions is to open jobcentres in the schools themselves, so ex-pupils never get to leave the campus. However, education chiefs warn that such quick fixes are doomed to failure as, with the playing fields sold off long ago, there is very little space available for school-leaver storage.
Several newspapers have called for a bloody good war, but the Ministry of Defence poured cold water on the suggestion, pointing out that it didn't even have enough equipment to go round now, and there was no money to buy any more. Recruitment chiefs have, however, been instructed to investigate the possibility of asking the young to bring their own guns and knives.
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