Seasonally adjusted claimant count unemployment rose 2,300 nationally in August, to stand at 1,466,300 or 5.3% of the workforce. Despite the national increase, seasonally adjusted unemployment in Birmingham fell by 171 to 46,523 or 11.6% of the workforce, down from 12.6% a year ago. Despite this relative improvement, Birmingham’s unemployment rate remains the highest of the 8 core cities (basically the 8 biggest cities in England aside from London, which also has much lower unemployment than Brum). Liverpool has the second worse unemployment figures of the core cities and Manchester comes third.

Unemployment in Acocks Green (measured in the unadjusted count, which always does worse than the adjusted figures in August) went up 32 to 1,179 or 10.7% of the workforce. This is 165 less than this time last year.

Meanwhile the number of vacancies available at Jobcentres in Birmingham rose to just over 9,000, the highest since the recession hit.