JOBLESS young people are victims of manufacturing decline - not lazy 'Vicky Pollard' characters - a North-East professor told MPs, after an investigation.

Rob Macdonald, Professor of Sociology at the University of Teesside, said his research into claims of a new underclass had smashed the stereotype of a generation not willing to work.

The issue has risen to prominence because of a rise in the number of so-called 'Neets', young people not in employment, education or training - and, apparently, with little future.

In the North-East, the number of 16 to 24-year-old 'Neets' has soared from 16.4 per cent in late 2007 (52,000) to 22.7 per cent (74,000) at the end of 2009, the highest proportion anywhere in England.

They have been dubbed the 'Vicky Pollard generation', after the lazy, loudmouthed character in the BBC comedy show Little Britain, famous for her "yeah-but, no-but" catchphrase.

But, speaking to an inquiry by the children's select committee, Professor Macdonald insisted young people badly wanted to work, but were trapped in a "no pay, low pay" cycle, often into their 30s.

He agreed they typically left school early, with few qualifications, but argued that was because they were keen to follow their parents into steady jobs - rather than go to college.

However, whereas Teesside had enjoyed an unemployment rate of just 1.5 per cent in the 1960s, those reliable jobs in the steel and chemicals industries had now disappeared.

They had been replaced by poorly-paid, insecure jobs as security guards, cashiers, shelfstackers, cleaners and care workers - work that did not last very long.

Professor Macdonald said: "They described a period of churning between jobs, training schemes, courses and unemployment - a no pay, low pay cycle that's their experience into their 30s.

"It is economic marginality in an insecure labour market, churning through various options but never making progress forwards."

He added: "There are not the good quality, working-class jobs. This is where these people come from. That's their background - and that's what's changed."

Professor Macdonald's research, called 'Disconnected Youth?', carried out interviews with nearly 200 working-class young people in Teesside, following many of them into their 30s.

He has also written a book, entitled 'Youth, the Underclass and Social Exclusion', which questioned whether youth crime and unemployment was "evidence of a new and dangerous youth underclass".

Across England, there are now more than one million Neets - nearly one in five of 16 to 24-year-olds - as the recession has hit the young hardest of all.

David Willetts, the Conservative skills secretary, said recently: "If we had predicted in 1997 that youth unemployment and disengagement would have increased under Labour no one would have believed us."