Nearly a million young people are not working or in education, official figures showed yesterday.

Con-Dem ministers tried desperately to paint the colossal waste as a good thing, limply pointing out that the 975,000 figure was less than the 1.1 million recorded last year.

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock insisted it was proof of “progress being made.”

But teachers and economists said that the decline in the number of “Neets” — not in employment, education or training — was negligible and the rate was more than twice that of some European countries.

Institute for Public Policy Research chief economist Tony Dolphin said: “If the economic recovery is sustained, the number of Neets in the UK will fall further but without action from the government it will remain at an unacceptably high level.”

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers’ director of economic strategy Martin Freedman agreed.

“We welcome any fall in Neet figures. However, there are still nearly a million young people in the UK who are Neet.”