Netherlands has Europe’s lowest NEET rate among young people

The Netherlands has turned youth disengagement into a European outlier: in 2023, just 4.8% of 15- to 29-year-olds were neither in education, employment nor training, the lowest rate in the European Union and well below the bloc’s 11.2% average. Statistics Netherlands counted 101,000 NEETs among 15- to 27-year-olds, about 4% of that age group, and said most were either briefly unemployed or unable to work because of illness or disability.

The Dutch model rests on a deliberate push to keep young people attached to school or work. School is compulsory from ages 5 to 16, and anyone from 16 to 18 without a start qualification must stay in education full time. In the Dutch system, that qualification means at least a havo, vwo or mbo-2 diploma, a rule that helps prevent teenagers from leaving education before they have a basic credential.

Vocational education is the other pillar. Secondary vocational education, known as MBO, offers more than 700 courses and comes in two routes: BOL, which is school-based, and BBL, a work-based pathway in which students are employed by a company and attend school one or two days a week. That structure helps explain why three-quarters of Dutch students had paid work in 2023 and why 582,000 young people aged 15 to 27 were working while not in education. The OECD said 71% of Dutch 18- to 24-year-olds were in formal education in 2023, the second-highest share among its members, while the Netherlands also had the lowest NEET rate in the OECD at 4.1%.

The country’s resilience has been tested before. A 2025 RAND and Youth Futures Foundation case study said youth unemployment rose sharply after the 2008 financial crisis and again during the COVID pandemic, but Dutch NEET rates stayed under 5% from 2015 onward. Eurostat put the Netherlands at 4.8% in 2023, already below the European Union’s 9% target for 2030.

For other countries, the Dutch lesson is practical rather than mysterious: strong vocational tracks, close employer partnerships and a rule that keeps young people in education until they reach a start qualification can all reduce NEET risk. The harder part is transfer. Those measures depend on employers willing to train, schools that can offer credible work-based routes and welfare systems that can bring young people back quickly after brief unemployment or health setbacks. Even in the Netherlands, youth work cooled slightly, with 77.7% of 15- to 27-year-olds in paid work in 2024, down from 77.9% in 2023.