A NEET is a young person who does not have a job, and is also not in school and not in training. The letters stand for 'not in education, employment, or training'. The word started as British government language in the late 1990s, a tidy box for people making policy. It then travelled. In Japan it became a well-known social label, and from Japanese — especially anime and internet culture — it spread around the world online. In English it is still a bit official and a bit cold; newspapers use it when they talk about young people with no work and no course as a group, not when they talk kindly to one person. Though actually, in East Asia the word often carries extra feeling: worry, blame, or a joke about staying home. It is not the same as 'unemployed', because an unemployed person may still be studying or on a course. And it is not the same as someone who never leaves the house; a NEET might go out, just not to work or class. People usually write it in capital letters.