『(英國)麥法登飛到鹿特丹,只為了解決一個其實他自己部門早已解釋過的問題。
帕特.麥法登前往荷蘭參訪。他造訪了一間名為 Jongerenpunt 的青年服務中心,回國後印象深刻。荷蘭18至24歲年輕人的 NEET(未就學、未就業、未接受職業訓練)比率為4.9%,而英國則高達15.1%。
麥法登提出的解方是:未來兩年設立180個青年服務中心(Youth Hubs),到2029年增加至360個,提供整合式服務、履歷撰寫協助、住房支援以及學徒培訓管道,並投入25億英鎊、為期三年的預算。
但其實他根本不需要飛到鹿特丹。
因為英國與荷蘭之間差距的原因,就擺在他自己部門掌握的數據裡。
自2020年以來,英國每聘用1名年輕英國本地勞工,就聘用了27名年輕的非歐盟移民勞工。非歐盟年輕族群的就業人數增加了355%,而英國本地年輕勞動力只增加了0.3%。
同一期間,NEET人數增加近25萬人,目前已超過100萬人。
社會正義中心(Centre for Social Justice)在同一天公布了這些數據,資料來源正是政府自己的英國稅務海關總署(HMRC)薪資資料。而同一天,艾倫.米爾本(Alan Milburn)針對青年失業問題的報告卻得出結論稱:
「沒有證據顯示移民與此有任何關聯。」
然而,政府自己的數據卻說明了相反的事實。
麥法登的部門掌握著這些證據。
但他們選擇去研究鹿特丹。
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25億英鎊這個數字值得仔細檢視。
若分攤到三年,以及政府所稱的「近100萬名年輕人」身上,平均每人每年大約只有800英鎊。
另一方面,政府也已確認,花在支付失業青年福利上的支出,是協助他們找到工作的25倍。
放在這樣的背景下來看,25億英鎊並不是一次制度性的改革。
它更像是一篇附帶預算數字的新聞稿。
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這份文件中還有一項值得深思的承認。
文件指出,荷蘭年輕人的憂鬱症狀比例高居全球第二,僅次於英國,而荷蘭的焦慮症比例也只比英國略低。
但文件最後得出的結論卻是:
「差異不在於健康狀況,而在於國家如何回應這些問題。」
這實際上悄悄推翻了英國政府多年來的說法——即將英國的 NEET 危機很大程度歸因於年輕人的心理健康危機。
如果一個心理健康指標相近的國家,卻能把 NEET 比率維持在英國的三分之一,那麼心理健康從來就不是主要原因。
政府如今已經白紙黑字地承認這一點,卻仍持續委託以此為主要論點的研究報告。
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荷蘭真正做到的事情,也是這份文件刻意避免深入探討的部分:
荷蘭有35%的年輕人接受職業教育訓練,而英國只有22%。
超過一半的荷蘭年輕人在19歲前就已累積職場經驗。
而這一切的前提,是勞動市場中必須存在足夠的基層工作職缺,讓本國年輕人能夠進入。
然而,英國去年10月的預算案卻朝著完全相反的方向前進。
雇主國民保險(National Insurance)調漲,加上青年最低工資大幅提高近20%,使得雇用基層年輕員工的成本增加。
而這一切正發生在:
每聘用1名英國年輕人,就有27名移民被聘用
的背景之下。
同一個政府推出的兩項政策,卻朝著相同方向運作——共同把英國年輕人擠出就業市場,而荷蘭則持續為本國年輕人保留這些機會。
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麥法登的青年服務中心或許能幫助部分年輕人在一套失靈的制度中找到方向。
但它們無法解決制度為何失靈。
整整一代英國年輕人,被排除在那些曾讓他們父母踏入職場的工作機會之外。
這些職位被以27比1的比例,由外來勞工取代。
而負責此事的部長,卻飛往鹿特丹研究一個從未製造出英國這種問題的國家。
答案從來不在荷蘭。
答案一直都在英國稅務海關總署(HMRC)的數據裡。
就在他自己的辦公桌上。
一直都在那裡。
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「25億英鎊這個數字值得仔細檢視。若分攤到三年,以及『近100萬名年輕人』身上,平均每人每年大約只有800英鎊。」』
McFadden Flew to Rotterdam to Solve a Problem His Own Department Already Explained.
Pat McFadden has been to the Netherlands. He visited a Jongerenpunt, a Dutch youth hub, and came back impressed. The Netherlands has a NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) rate of 4.9 percent among 18 to 24 year olds. Britain's is 15.1 percent. McFadden's solution is to open 180 Youth Hubs over the next two years, rising to 360 by 2029, offering wraparound services, CV advice, housing support and apprenticeship pathways, backed by £2.5 billion over three years.
But he did not need to fly to Rotterdam. The explanation for the gap between Britain and the Netherlands is sitting in his own department's data.
Since 2020, 27 young non-EU migrants have been hired in Britain for every one young British worker. Non-EU youth employment has risen 355 percent. The young British workforce has grown by 0.3 percent. Over the same period, NEET numbers have risen by almost 250,000, now exceeding one million. The Centre for Social Justice published these figures, drawn from the government's own HMRC payroll data, on the same day Alan Milburn's review into youth worklessness concluded there was "no evidence" that immigration played any role. The government's own numbers say otherwise. McFadden's department has the evidence. It chose Rotterdam instead.
The £2.5 billion figure deserves scrutiny. Spread across three years and "almost one million young people," it amounts to roughly £800 per person per year. The government has separately confirmed it spends twenty-five times more paying unemployed young people benefits than it spends helping them find work. £2.5 billion against that backdrop is not a system reset. It is a press release with a budget line attached.
The document contains an admission worth dwelling on. It notes that Dutch youth report the second highest rate of depressive symptoms in the world, behind only Britain's, and that Dutch anxiety rates are only slightly lower than Britain's. It then concludes that "the difference is not health but how the country responds to it." This quietly demolishes years of government framing that attributed Britain's NEET crisis substantially to a mental health epidemic among young people. If a country with comparable mental health outcomes can achieve a NEET rate three times lower, mental health was never the primary explanation. The government has now admitted this in writing while continuing to commission reviews that lead with it.
What the Netherlands actually does, and what this document carefully avoids drawing any connection to, is maintain a labour market where 35 percent of young people pursue vocational training against 22 percent in Britain, and where over half of Dutch young people have workplace experience by age 19. That requires entry-level jobs to exist in sufficient numbers for young nationals to fill them. Britain's October budget did the opposite. The employer National Insurance rise and a near twenty percent jump in the youth minimum wage made entry-level hiring more expensive at the exact moment 27 migrants were being hired for every one British young person. Two policies, the same government, working in the same direction, both squeezing British youth out of the market the Netherlands keeps open for its own.
McFadden's Youth Hubs may help some young people navigate a broken system. They will not address why the system is broken. A generation of British youngsters has been priced out of the jobs that once gave their parents a start, replaced by imported labour at a rate of 27 to 1, while the minister responsible flew to Rotterdam to study a country that simply never created the problem Britain manufactured at home. The answer was never in the Netherlands. It was in the HMRC data, on his own desk, the whole time.
"The £2.5 billion figure deserves scrutiny. Spread across three years and 'almost one million young people,' it amounts to roughly £800 per person per year."