The world of work has changed so much since I landed my first job more than two decades ago. But a recent conversation I had with my other half’s younger brother made me realise just how old I am.

He may be an “old” Gen Z, but he has never wanted a 9-5 job. He makes his living from his bedroom, working with people around the world. He dabbles in cryptocurrencies. Most of his money is in a wallet you can’t put in your pocket. And he bought my son a non-fungible token for his birthday. As someone who trudges into the office every day and still pays for some things with cash, I remember feeling like a fossil.

Far from being lazy, in many ways young people today are more entrepreneurial than ever. But there is also an alarming trend among the next generation that we ignore at our peril.

I’m not talking about youth unemployment. The number of 18- to 24-year-olds out of work has fallen since its post-financial crisis peak. In 2011, roughly one in five was unemployed. That’s now one in eight, or around 12 per cent.

What’s more concerning is that a growing share of Britain’s youth is not convinced that work is worth it at all. The number neither in work nor looking for a job has been on the rise since the pandemic. Close to 1 million young people aged between 16 and 24 are now not working, studying or learning on the job, representing a rise of around 250,000 compared with three years ago. The increase has been driven almost entirely by men.

I have written in Business Leader before about why tackling economic inactivity is one of Britain’s biggest challenges. But getting more young people into work is even more important. One in seven young men and one in nine young women are now classed as not in employment, education or training (NEET). The full reasons behind who and why are for another day, but it’s clear that poor health is an increasing factor.

Young people have seen the sharpest rise in post-lockdown rates of inactivity among different age groups. It’s not the so-called “great retirement” (where the older generation is leaving the workforce) we should be worried about, but the failure of a growing number to launch their careers. We know that delays entering the world of work can permanently damage someone’s earnings and employment potential. Those held back by ill health are also less likely to go on to further education.

Research by the Resolution Foundation think tank found that four-fifths of young people who are workless owing to ill health have only GCSE-level qualifications or below, compared to a third of all 18- to 24-year-olds. It warns that this means young people who are not in work due to ill health are doubly disadvantaged, by both poor health and low skills.

It’s not just school leavers who are struggling. An increasing number of college and university students are graduating onto the dole queue. Analysis by Boston Consulting Group found that students are now one of the biggest contributors to the increase in long-term sickness. In 2021/22, more than 60,000 people aged between 16 and 24 went straight from being economically inactive because they were studying to being inactive through long-term sickness, up from just over 35,000 before the pandemic.

Why does this matter? The Office for Budget Responsibility, the government’s tax and spending watchdog, has warned that the longer somebody spends out of work, the harder it is to get back in. It estimates that among those with health problems, an average of one in six returns to work each quarter in the first year after leaving, whereas only one in 20 does when they have been out of work a year or longer. Reversing this trend will be like swimming against an increasingly strong tide.

And what about those who never joined in the first place? This government is devoting a lot of time to talking about a back-to-work drive. The latest whitepaper from the Labour government is titled Get Britain Working, with one of its main areas of focus delivering a youth guarantee that aims to give every young person access to education or training to help them find a job. But I believe that it must start much earlier than this. I’d start in the classroom.

Some of the post-Covid school attendance figures are staggering. There are now more than 1.5 million children – representing 20 per cent of those in state or special schools – who are classed as “persistently absent”, meaning they are skipping the equivalent of every other Friday or one afternoon each week. This has grown by 68 per cent since lockdown.

Even more striking is the fact that around 150,000 children miss lessons more often than they attend. More than 2 per cent of children are classed as “severely absent”, defined as missing the equivalent of every morning of school. This number has more than doubled since the pandemic started in 2020. Kids who don’t show up in the classroom are less likely to show up for work as adults.

There also needs to be a clear path to a job for those who don’t necessarily want to go to university. Today’s apprenticeship scheme is not fit for purpose and in the worst cases incentivises MBAs over real training on the job. Many small and medium-sized firms will be the ones that give young people their first shot. The government must not make this harder by introducing workers’ rights reforms that punish them for taking a chance on someone who is inexperienced.

Young people today want the same things as their predecessors, mainly a chance to get on in life and move up in the world. Politicians must break down barriers, not put them up, if they really want to give young people a helping hand.

Szu Ping Chan is economics editor of The Telegraph.