Seasonally adjusted unemployment in the UK fell in December 2010 and now stands at 5.1%. Birmingham’s seasonally adjusted rate was unchanged at 11.4%. The unadjusted rate in Birmingham fell by 229 to 45,523 and now stands at 11.2%, compared to 12.4% a year ago. This remains significantly higher than the other main cities in the UK, though we have now fallen marginally below Liverpool. This small relative improvement is probably because we have a relatively larger element of manufacturing industry in our economy, compared to other UK cities. While manufacturing slumped badly immediately after the crash in 2008, this sector of the economy has recovered well and is performing strongly, while the public sector is now starting to lose significant numbers of jobs. Somewhat surprisingly, despite this, and the many public sector pay freezes, overall public sector pay is still rising faster (2.4% pa) than private sector pay (1.9%).

In Acocks Green the unadjusted level of unemployment rose by 4 to 1,186 in December. This is 150 below the level of a year ago.