what you say is true, but it beats NEET for mental health.

In my experience, it causes NEET-tier mental health. These rise-and-grind employment situations burn through people rather than developing them into more skilled and useful workers.

Reach out to every company you can find that fits your criteria

By all means, absolutely do that. But I see a ton of dysfunction on the corporate side of the coin that rarely gets acknowledged when we talk about “NEETs” as a social phenomenon. As though hundreds of thousands of young people just woke up one morning and all decided to be lazy at once. From my experience, people are being thrown into an economic wood chipper. Some of them escape. Some miraculously pass through. But a bunch are torn to shreds - physically, psychologically, emotionally - and then told to take responsibility for their mangled state.

I’ve seen this arc before, aimed specifically at minority youth groups (African Americans, in particular). From my experience, what comes next is a ton of brutal policing and human immiseration for anyone who can’t climb through successfully. And then you get another Ferguson.