Unemployment Falls in Birmingham

by Roger Harmer on 15 March, 2012

The latest unemployment figures show Birmingham outperforming the UK as the only core city to experience a decrease in unadjusted unemployment. The number of claimants decreased by 203 or 0.1% taking the total to 52,135 or 12.9% of the workforce. Acocks Green did proportionately better with a fall of 33 or 0.3% bringing the total down to 1,234 or 10.9% in February.

Over the three months to January, seasonally adjusted UK unemployment rose by 28,000 to 2.67m. At the same time employment also rose, by 9,000 as private sector job growth of 45,000 exceeded the fall in public sector jobs of 37,000 (the figures do not quite balance due to rounding errors). This jobs growth is welcome news, and seems to indicate that a double dip recession is unlikely, however it needs to accelerate to reduce unemployment, as the number of people available for work continues to grow.

The relative good performance of Birmingham may well be down to the strong performance of the local car industry with both Jaguar and Land Rover, growing strongly as the competitive exchange rate helps them to develop their export sales. This is exactly the sort of growth we need to rebalance the economy from excessive reliance on finance to a broader base including a rejuvenated manufacturing sector.

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