When 19-year-old Dejanae set her online job search criteria for the local area, she was shocked at how few options came back. She studied animal science in college but is struggling to find work in the West Midlands.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard. You put Dudley<\/a>, but it\u2019s mainly jobs outside Dudley that come up because there just isn\u2019t much here,\u201d she said. \u201cEven jobs in Birmingham (10 miles away) are difficult because I\u2019m two hours away on a bus, so they don\u2019t even want to consider me.\u201d<\/p>\n In a report on the soaring number of young people<\/a> who are not in education, employment or training (Neet) released in May, Dudley was singled out for its extremely high level of youth unemployment. The number of Neets and \u201cnot knowns\u201d in the area was 21.5%, much higher than the national average of 5.6%. The majority of London boroughs, even those with similar rates of deprivation, have rates at about 2-4%.<\/p>\n Of the 10 English local authorities with the highest proportion of Neets, eight were in the north or Midlands.<\/p>\n The Neet crisis is one of the biggest problems facing Andy Burnham in his first few months as prime minister, and many are eagerly waiting to see how he responds to the report by Alan Milburn.<\/p>\n Andy Burnham has reinstated a \u00a32 cap on bus fares in England, but for many young people poor transport links remain a huge barrier to accessing employment. Photograph: Toby Melville\/Reuters<\/p>\n His recent reinstatement of a \u00a32 cap on bus fares<\/a> in England has been welcomed as a boost for young people who are more likely to rely on this mode of transport. But the Green party said the policy should be more targeted, calling for permanent free travel for all people under 22.<\/p>\n Bus travel is a big problem in Dudley, where poor transport links remain a huge barrier to accessing jobs in Birmingham. A long-awaited tram extension has been delayed for the eighth time.<\/p>\n In the heart of the Black Country, Dudley was one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution and became a significant manufacturing hub in the postwar period. But as this heavy industry declined, so did the number of local jobs, diverting many to Birmingham, which now has a rapidly expanding professional and financial services sector.<\/p>\n Callum, a 20-year-old from Dudley, says he has applied for well over 1,000 jobs in the past four years. \u201cI\u2019m trying to get something within a 10-mile radius but there\u2019s so little out there, and so many roles require experience young people just don\u2019t have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The shock of being such an outlier led Dudley council staff to take unprecedented action. Over eight weeks, they knocked on more than 600 doors across the borough to find out exactly what was happening to their young people.<\/p>\n With a much clearer picture, the number of Neets increased but the \u201cnot known\u201d figure reduced drastically, giving them a new overall figure of 7.6% \u2013 still one of the highest rates in the country for an urban area.<\/p>\n Roy Stokes, a children and young people\u2019s substance use worker at the charity Cranstoun, said he was seeing drug and alcohol use increasing among young people. Photograph: Andrew Fox\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Staff found a \u201cnervous cohort\u201d and lots of neurodiversity and other vulnerabilities among children and their parents that was holding people back from work or further education.<\/p>\n Viv Webb, an employment and skills manager at Dudley careers service, said: \u201cLots of our young people are anxious about absolutely everything. If you try to start a conversation, it\u2019s lots of shuffling in seats \u2013 that lack of social skill seems to be worse than I\u2019ve ever seen it.\u201d<\/p>\n Cranstoun, a social harm reduction charity, provides one of the last remaining youth clubs in the town, a drop-in service in Merry Hill shopping centre. Dudley has a higher than national average rate of permanent school exclusions, which Cranstoun staff said, combined with high levels of poverty, was pushing children down the wrong path.<\/p>\n Roy Stokes, a children and young people\u2019s substance use worker, said: \u201cWe\u2019re seeing drug and alcohol use increasing again, especially with young girls. \u201cIf your parents aren\u2019t affluent enough to take you to after-school clubs, which are so expensive now, you go out on the streets. These things push anxiety levels up, then kids are leaving school with a feeling that there\u2019s no future for them.\u201d<\/p>\n The West Midlands has had some of deepest funding cuts for young people in England, with youth service expenditure falling by roughly 88% in real terms between 2011 and 2022. It has the lowest per capita spend for five-to-17-year-olds in the country<\/a> at \u00a325.74. In outer London, the spend is \u00a350 a head.<\/p>\n