Young people must “earn or learn” or face having their benefits cut, under government plans to get them back into work and grow the economy.

Official figures suggest nearly a million young people were out of education, employment or training between July and September.

Job centres and mental health support will get more funding to help people into work, the government has said. However, business leaders have said rises in employer National Insurance contributions and minimum wages will leave them less money to create new jobs.

The BBC has spoken to young people yet to enter the workforce, as well as those with different reasons for leaving it.

Hassan, 20, from Birmingham, finished his A levels in 2022 and has been out of work ever since.

“This year has been kind of a constant struggle. I want to get a job but how do I get a job? And how do I write the right CV? And how do I apply for things?”

He is receiving help with these struggles from the King’s Trust.

Hassan missed out on sitting his GCSE exams because of the Covid pandemic and said sitting formal exams for the first time at 18 was “overwhelming”.

“I realised what I had been calling ‘stress’ for many years was actually anxiety. I had been carrying it with me for so long,” he said.

“There’s a lot of talk these days about mental health. But a lot of people think it’s overrepresented… that makes you feel uncertain about trying to identify these problems you deal with in your daily life.”

The government’s Get Britain Working plan states that places with the highest levels of unemployment will receive extra NHS support, including additional mental health specialists.

Hassan’s poor mental health in his final year at school meant he put off applying to university, but due to the rising cost of tuition fees, he’s now unsure if it’s right for him.

“There’s this thing that is still sold to us, it’s the idea that you should get good grades, and go to university, and get a job, and get a house, and start a family, but that’s not how it is. It’s not happening for our generation.”

Amy Wilkes, 23, from Coventry has a degree in criminology, policing and investigation but said she gets no responses when she applies for jobs.

“It’s really frustrating, soul-destroying and gutting,” said Amy, who has been volunteering with the witness service for over a year.

“It is very hard to find a job, let alone a career,” she said.

The last job she applied for was in victim support, but she was told she didn’t have enough experience.

“What more can I give? I have a relevant degree and lots of volunteering experience,” she said.

She told the BBC her morale can get low sometimes, and that she occasionally struggles emotionally, especially as “applying for loads of jobs is draining”.

Young people who refuse to work will face having their benefits cut, the work and pensions secretary has said.

If her benefits were taken away, Amy says she’d be left “in a tight spot”, although she would be “open to any experiences really because it will all help”.

“I really want to work, but it’s finding the work that’s hard. There isn’t enough support in helping people find further support, and work.”

Kiarna, 18, from Birmingham said her struggle to find a job began at sixth form where she felt misunderstood because of her learning difficulties and mental health struggles.

“I went to college… but I felt like they didn’t understand me, they would moan at me, have a go at me. They didn’t understand that for someone with learning difficulties it’s really hard to learn stuff. It takes longer to make it click in your head,” she said.

Kiarna said the lack of support and structure after she finished formal education had also been a barrier in finding work. She is now receiving help from the Kings Trust.

“My day-to-day was watching my family members go to work and go to college and sitting there trying to work out what my next step was,” she said.

“For kids who have mental health issues, as soon as you stop going to college you don’t know what’s going to happen next. It affects you really badly.

“The government should listen and hear young people clearly… and say they will put in more effort to get young people to work, not sanction them.”

Fiona Button, 48, from London, left the workforce 10 years ago to care for her three children, after struggling to find adequate childcare.

“Frankly, I’d love to go out and get a job,” said Fiona, adding she was tentatively looking for part-time or freelance work as a copywriter.

But she said “domestic responsibilities are not things that go away”, and she had no one that she can ask for help with childcare. Her partner runs a business of 150 people which demands a lot of his time, and all four of their parents have passed away.

Fiona said if she did get a job she could potentially end up paying to work because of the cost of hiring a nanny. “Childcare is expensive and it’s easier and less hassle if I do it myself because there are fewer moving parts to co-ordinate.”

In particular, school holidays and sick days exacerbate the challenge of securing flexible childcare.

Andrew Bullock, from Coventry, chose to stop working as a teacher six years ago at the age of 55.

“It no longer satisfied me and I disliked having to be managed by people far younger than me,” said Andrew, now 61.

“Since I stopped working, I have used my time to care for family and friends, carry out voluntary work and spend more time travelling overseas.”

Andrew now spends more time visiting his mother who lives in a care home, and next year will begin caring for his granddaughter when his daughter returns to work from maternity leave.

Andrew has some rental properties and carries out the maintenance work himself. He doesn’t think the government can tempt him back to work.

He says he lives “pretty well” because his hobbies are inexpensive and he has “enough income to live on from property rentals and some of my pension”.

“I’m much happier now, doing what I love,” Andrew added.

Matthew Pocock, 48, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, has not been able to work since contracting long Covid in 2020. He has a doctorate in science and had been working as a research scientist at the University of Newcastle.

He said he now found it difficult to do household tasks “even things like emptying the dishwasher or hanging up clothes”. He said he suffered from exhaustion and “quite severe brain fog”.

“I get about two hours a day where I’m well enough to do something,” he added.

Matthew said his job had involved intensive mental tasks such as coding and reading academic papers but he now found it difficult to focus for long periods of time.

“Half an hour or so, then my brain has just gone to mush again,” he said.

Matthew told the BBC he had tried applying for jobs, but struggled with the mental load. He said the exhaustion he experiences meant he would not be able to work in a physical job, such as stacking shelves, but being at home had been “quite boring to be honest”.

“My hope is that I recover and then can reboot some kind of career, and take a much better part in our family life,” he said.

Reporting by Lucy Acheson, Kris Bramwell, Faarea Masud, Deborah Weitzmann and Josh McMinn