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Midlands in new jobless high
Wednesday 17th February 2010, 11:30AM GMT.
The West Midlands reclaimed its unwanted crown as the UK’s jobless blackspot today, despite a drop in unemployment nationally of 3,000 to around 2.46 million.
Figures for those claiming jobseeker’s allowance were up in all areas of the Black Country.
The numbers make up part of the total jobless figure and, although today’s figures show that figure in the region fell by 7,000 to 252,000 between October and December, the rate of unemployment in the West Midlands, at 9.4 per cent, was the highest of any UK region. It was way above the national average of 7.8 per cent.
Nationally, the number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance increased by 23,500 last month to 1.64 million, said the Office for National Statistics.
The Jobseeker’s Allowance figures relate to January, after seasonal Christmas work for thousands had come to an end, placing them back on the dole.
The upward trend in people claiming the allowance is reflected across the West Midlands, with the Birmingham figure increasing by 1,145 to 51,263, or 8.1 per cent of the city’s working population.
In Wolverhampton the figure increased by 334 to 12,084 or 8.4 per cent, while in Dudley there was a rise of 452 to 11,189 or 6.1 per cent of the working population.
Sandwell saw a rise of 319 to 13,968, or eight per cent, while Walsall figure also increased, by 118 to 11,255, or 7.5 per cent.
In Kidderminster and the Wyre Forest there was a rise of 190 to 2,767 or 4.7 per cent of the working population, while South Staffs saw an increase of 80 to 2,242 or 3.5 per cent.
The Stafford figure increased by 58 to 2,210, or 2.9 per cent; Lichfield also saw a rise, of 84 to 1,910, or 3.3 per cent and Cannock Chase also increased by 123 to 3,088 or 5.2 per cent of the working population.
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Go on Mr Brown, you keep telling us that you’re doing a good job while we’re all struggling to find a job!
Thanks mate!
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And the alternative is???????
It is a global recession, not just limited to the UK. Folk who used to be on the sick and claiming other benefits to “hide the figures” as in Thatcher’s times are now on the count.
Times are hard at present, no arguement, but I’d sooner have Gordon Brown and Co. trying to sort things out than being left to “the silver spoon in the mouth” lot.
There has been more support than ever before put in place to help people who are out of work. However, as always, there will be a minority who will use it as an excuse to live off others.
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Rubbish! School children cant leave until 17 now to hide figures from the unemployed lists. Anyone on training courses are not counted, anyone that has earned during the year is not counted and dont qualify for jobseekers.
I do agree that there are a huge amount of people playing the system and spunging whatever they can get, but this has all been made too easy for them.
What other country in the World would(for people on benefits) if they can get themselve diagnosed as alcoholic become eligible then to claim an extra £50 benefit a week for alcohol – and that is a fact!
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What other country in the World would(for people on benefits) if they can get themselve diagnosed as alcoholic become eligible then to claim an extra £50 benefit a week for alcohol – and that is a fact!
No it’s not. As someone who works for “the system” I know that is a total falsehood.
Kids can’t leave school until 17? Wrong, they still can leave at 16, since 1995 anyone under 18 does not have an automatic right to benefit. So wrong again.
Anyone claiming JSA counts. So to say if you’ve earned during the year you don’t, is once again wrong.
I’d check your source.
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Perhas ‘socialist’ could explain the 8 million economically inactive and tell us whether they are hidden from the unemployment figures?
Labour banged the drum about their ‘achievement’ of most employment for several years. Most of that was achieved by the government employing an extra 1 million people (cost approx £20bn/year) and by increasing the total population through immigration.
Hardly an ‘achievement’ is it. Creating non-jobs for 1 million, unfettered immigration to boost the labour vote and showing 8 million economically inactive as only 2.45m unemployed.
Labour are the biggest disaster for this country of all time.
I would like to give them 5 more years and see what happens.
For a start the pound will tank as they have no economic (prudent) capability.
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i find the figures shocking to say the least
it would be interesting to look further into this data . what areas/wards have the highest unemployment
more needs to ne done by local chambers of commerce especily the male population who is increasingly becoming the victims of the changing job market,we cannot keep building new shopping centres when all we are producing is low pay.
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New shopping centres = more jobes for those in construction and actracts people to our city = more jobs in shops etc. But yes more needs to be done!
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Hardly surprising results. The midlands has always been a manufacturing region, this is an area that the present government has paid little or not attention to other than to try to tax into oblivion under the guise of climate change etc, etc. This country has the most lax laws of any european country with regard to closing companies, in France 2 years notice has to be given, employees paid etc. Watch out Cadbury’s employees…when the Americans weigh up how much it will cost to shut a birmingham plant against another european plant…dont be surprised when the UK suffers again. This goverment seems more than happy to wave manufacturing into the sunset and has an apparent “not on our doorstep” policy that if all manufacturing is done in Chinatheres not CO2 emissions and they have hit their target. We have to manufacture something to generate the wealthfor the economy…we cant all work in call centres and leisure centres.
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The UK does manufacture lots to generate wealth – the contribution of “creative industries” to the UK economy is similar to manufacturing, and growing.
So the UK produces TV series, films, music, theatre productions, design, architecture, research…
That generates more wealth, has far less of an environmental impact and pays higher wages than manufacturing.
So yes you’re right – the UK needs to produce things to generate wealth; but the UK does that already. You just need to alter your perception of what “manufacturing” might mean.
John Howkins’s book “The Creative Economy” is a good introduction and I’ve found copies in local libraries.
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Connor, if you truly believe arts, media and high end jobs such as architecture can sustain a country and generate wealth you are sadly deluded. TV and Film have been shedding jobs for years…theres no regional TV anymore as an example.
Not everyone can or has the apptitude to go to a unversity and there would not be work to sustain a sudden glut of architects etc.
This negligence of the white collar working class, labours core support, is why Labour have lost their key support and why we have seen movements towards
extreme parties such as the BNP.
The powerhouse emerging economies today such as China and India,all have economies based around manufacturing – that we have ironically helped create.
More and more people are waking up o the thought that CO2 is a convenient excuse for taxes…..and is finding less and less scientific support each day (apart from the scientists employed on the subject).
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Another result of Labour’s recession but if the Tories win Dudley North they’ll have a Commons majority. Lib Dem, UKIP and Green supporters there can safely vote Labour there to block it without Brown keeping his own majority, whereas 50 seats further up the Tory target list in Wolves SW voting Labour is too risky. A win there probably secures another Labour majority so in Wolves SW the Tories must be backed to stop them.
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“The midlands has always been a manufacturing region, this is an area that the present government has paid little or not attention to” Biffo aka Conservative party spokesman.
So it received a massive boost under the previous government, I think not, it actually deteriorated even quicker.
Successive gaffe-rnments of all political persuasions have let down midlands manufacture, they have all been useless, and I don’t trust any future ones for the current prospects will do any different. Rewriting history 1984 style and hoping we just ‘forget’ the past however will not succeed, you must think we are really stupid.
I do not trust any of them, they are politicians, their lips are moving, see what I mean…
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Kathryn (AKA..Labour Spokesperson) Undoubtedly manufacturing has been in decline for some years…chiefly due to lack of investment by companies in technology etc when times were good.
But make excuses however you will…things have and are conitnuing to deteriorate at an even more alarming rate, 3 month close in the UK.
This government actively encourages investment abroad, imposes taxes on business that make it uncompetitive with foreign countries.
Politicians may all lie – I just want a party to recognise whats going on and act
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The figures don’t seem to stack up.
E&S journalists – have you ballsed up the arithmetic, or is something missing here? The regional figure is 9.4% and yet the highest figure you quote of individual LAs is 8.4%. What’s going on?
If by “West Midlands”, the article is referring to the region, then the counties not mentioned such as Herefordshire, Stoke on Trent, Worcester etc would have to be far higher than Wolverhampton’s 8.4% figure, in order to pull the regional average up to the 9.4% figure quoted.
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The regional percentage figure for unemployment in the West Midlands is not the average of all the constituent towns. It all depends on the population figures of each town, district, ward etc. If you look at Birmingham Ladywood the figure is 11.5% for example. Statistics can be misleading!
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manufacturing in this countries finished the only way forward is to get an allotment thats if the eu dont cap how much we can grow
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mate the country on the whole is finished
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Well here we all are feelling the effect’s of a massive blowback thank’s to maggie thatcher, it was only time that would tell, labour are no different, All they are bothered about is what they cant claim themselve’s these day’s, So with that the three partys in question will not getting my vote.
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are you serious? You are blaming somebody who hasn’t been in office for 20 years?
What on earth happened in between?
Do you sit around doing nothing for 20 years?
You were no doubt pointing out the dangers of excessive debt build up over the last decade as your house tripled in value for example?
Some people still think that is a good thing.
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I hope you guys are ready for the upcoming financial crash of 2010, last years recession could be considered a picnic to what we have approaching us from the horizon.
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Regional government anyone??? And 5% Corporate tax for anyone located here?
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Totally agree.
Democracy needs to be more local and accountable and taxes need to be lower.
Then we may finally see a recovery.
Less government can only be a good thing.
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The wards most affected by high JSA claimants in Wolverhampton are East Park Ward, Bilston East Ward, Heath Town Ward. The Local Authorities having the highest rates of Jobseekers Allowance claimants, both before the recession and currently, are the large urban areas – Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Sandwell and Walsall. Sandwell and Wolverhampton have seen the biggest increase in rates over the year to December 2009. Compared with all other local authorities in the region Wolverhampton ranks the highest with 8.2% of our populous in receipt of JSA.In today’s report it shows a significant climb of 2% in the city. 1 in 6 of those affected and in receipt of JSA in Wolverhampton are aged between 18-24.
There are many people of working age in the city on a range of benefits. Although it has not increased as much as other areas during the recession, it is amongst the highest in the country. Approximately 36 per cent of households were in receipt of housing and/or council tax benefit in May 2009 and Council reports show that the to tal number of customers claiming those benefits increased by seven per cent com pared with the previous year. People in Wolverhampton have on average far fewer skills and qualifications than the rest of the country although there has been a recent slight improvement of late. Around 25 per cent of the population have no qualifications; this figure rises to half the population of some of the most deprived neighbourhoods. An economic review of the City said that the lack of skills and qualifications in the work force is a key barrier to persuading businesses to invest in Wolverhampton. From my own experience in trying to help local people back into work through a third sector voluntary group, big named companies within the West Midlands have issued bids for the (FJF) Futures Job Fund, but are unable to fill these places on their own and so they turn to the third sector to implement placements but refuse point blank to part with any of the subsidy in order to keep projects moving. Yet it is these big recognised organisation that are receiving anything between £1.5m – £2m on the back of a promise to find 18 – 24 year olds work placements leading to full employment. On the FJF participants receive a wage for 30 hrs per week for a period of six months.
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Bet there are some smart unemployed people walking the streets of Wolverhampton though, thanks to the job centre kitting them out in new gear.
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Darren Friel, comment’s there are 25% of the population without qualification’s. why is it that we all need a piece of paper to say we are supposed to be skilled, it’s the kid’s of today who need to get out and learn something with there hand’s appossed to holding an xbox 360 controller 24/7, if only you could see the so called skilled job two very young men did when they fitted our cable tv, it was a sorry job,if you call the mess they made a skilled job then im horrified, myself im a skilled engineer with no qualifacation’s so i never stand a chance ever again of working according to your posting/prediction.
at the end of the day paper does’nt alway’s mean everything.
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SM, You have missed the point that I am making entirely. The point I was making was that these young people that a majority refer to as lay-about x-box playing zombies, do want to get their hands dirty and most importantly learn skills to make them work ready! I received an email just yesterday from a local lad who had tried in vein to get on the first rung of the job ladder only to be turned down because he did not have the experience they were looking for and that was just for packing and general warehouse operative. And these are city center employment agencies that I refer to. Only a few years ago it did’nt matter what qualifications you had to get the job, if the face fitted and you were prepared to get your hands dirty and graft you got the job. The local job center’s are sending a majority of these young people to interviews they have had nil preparation for the vacancy or even have a clue as to what the job entails it’s ridiculous and unfair to the individual. I have witnessed this first hand over the past four months. On several occassions those that I had interviewed told me that they had attended the interview and did not know what it is they were coming to do. And nearly all said, that they had been just told to attend without delay or their benefits would be cut. It’s one thing to be tough on them to push them into work, and another to demoralise the poor bleeders. One thing I will say is that most the young adults I have had the pleasure to work with recently, all say the same thing. Give me the chance to prove myself and I will show you what I can do. And they do just that, they are more than able if given the chance and opportunity. Experience is the key to employment these days and I’m saddened to say, that unless local companies are prepared to offer them a chance to prove them selves able rather than pre-judging them based on experiences and by what little they have written on a piece of paper. Then, I fear those without the experience will be in for very long wait.
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More useless schemes then, further cementing the notion this region is a cultural, economic black hole.
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They should stop forcing people into low-paid work, or manufacturing. I’ve seen really bright, eager people treated like dirt because they wanted more..hardly surprising if people don’t want to stick around and be treated like scoundrels. This region is on the map for low wages and long hours – even now and despite the pool of skills and qualifications going elsewhere. Either this region changes it’s attitude or it will further be treated as a haven for factory fodder, the only people benefiting being the sweatshop owners and their globalist buddies overseas.
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I could’nt have said that better myself Anon.
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