The ideas that Neets (young people not in education, employment or training) simply aren’t trying hard enough to find a job, or don’t want one, are “myths,” Alan Milburn wrote in his interim report on the subject earlier this year – “sometimes cruel ones”. Although 84% of Neets say they want to work, their prospects are unfairly limited by where they live. Rotherham has one suitable vacancy for every 22 young adults. The Cotswolds has one for every four. For too many young people, particularly those in deprived parts of Britain, there simply aren’t enough jobs.

This is the finding from an index published last week by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), which ranked British towns according to the availability of jobs for young people. Like so many features of Britain’s Neet crisis, from poor mental health to school drop-out rates, the index is a map of disadvantage. At the top are affluent towns in southern England that account for........

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