Another month of good employment news leaves Acocks Green on the threshold of losing its membership of one of the more unwanted clubs in Birmingham – that of wards with claimant unemployment of over 1,000. Claimant unemployment fell by 32 to exactly 1,000 in Acocks Green. This represents 7.6% of the workforce and a fall of 174 over the past year.

Half of Birmingham’s 40 wards currently have unemployment of over 1,000 and, of these, five have unemployment of over 2,000. Aston has the highest figure at 2,436 (though here too, there has been a significant fall – 198 – in the past year).

There was also another fall in youth unemployment in Acocks Green  in October: down 5 to 259 (making a three month fall of 51). Long term unemployment fell by 19 to 629.

Across Birmingham, claimant unemployment fell by 1,870 to 42,982, which represents a fall of 6,575 in the past year and a claimant rate of 9.4%. Despite this progress Birmingham still has significantly higher unemployment than other major UK cities. The next highest is Liverpool at 8.4% while Manchester has 6.7%, Leeds 4.9% and Greater London 4.3%.