National seasonally adjusted unemployment fell by 10,200 in February. The national level now stands at 5.1%. Birmingham’s seasonally adjusted rate decreased to 46,060 or 11.4%. The unadjusted rate in Birmingham increased by 277 to 47,070 and now stands at 11.6% (a year ago it was 51,266 or 12.6%).

As with January, unadjusted unemployment tends to rise in February and it rose in all major UK cities. Birmingham continued the gradual relative improvement compared to other UK cities that I have noted for several months. Our unemployment level is now 0.3% below Liverpool’s (0.2% last month and not long ago it was above) and is just 0.1% above Manchester’s (0.3% above last month). As I said last month this trend is likely to continue as manufacturing employment (of which we have more than average) grows healthily and public sector employment shrinks, as the huge public sector budget deficit is reduced. An example of the healthy growth in manufacturing is that UK car production is currently up 15.1% on a year ago, with exports up 27%

Acocks Green continued to outperform the rest of Birmingham; last month even the unadjusted level of unemployment fell; by 28 to 1,174. This is now 191 below the level of a year ago. Only Perry Barr and Sparkbrook saw bigger falls during the month