Fewer young people not in work or education in 2025

A pre-mortem baseline dressed as progress report. The 11.0% NEET rate is the high-water mark of human-labor integration before AI cognitive automation begins to collapse the cognitive work sector. The 22/27 countries showing improvement are not solving the structural problem — they are occupying the last defensible ground before the offensive arrives. The DT prediction: NEET rates in the 2030s will exceed 2015 levels in most EU member states as entry-level cognitive roles are automated first, the gig/platform layer that absorbed NEET-reduction gains proves economically non-viable, and the 9% EU target becomes not a goal missed but a structural impossibility. The Netherlands at 5.3% is not evidence the model works — it is evidence of deeper lag. This is hospice reporting as progress narrative.