Today's jobless numbers were bad, but could have been worse. Here's why, plus the latest on how specific cities are doing...
First, the really bad news:
- Look at this graph
- In the 3 months to April, total unemployment hit 2.26 million - the highest under this Labour Govt
- That's a lot of people - just over 7 out of every 100 working-age adults
- 302k people were made redundant in Feb-April - the highest quarterly job loss increase in over a decade
It's even worse if you're under 25. Young people are definitely bearing the brunt of the recession. Nearly 17% of 18-24 year olds are now out of work. And that figure will get worse by the autumn, as school-leavers and graduates start looking for work. Vacancies are now down to 424k - 36% lower than a year ago.
We've got a report coming out next week, on youth unemployment - part of our Surviving Recession programme - so look out for that.
There are now 1.54 million on Jobseeker's Allowance - nearly 5% of the workforce. But on a slightly less gloomy note:
- The increase in May's claimant count unemployment rate was less than expected - up 39k versus expectations of 60k.
- That's a lot less than the massive 136k increase in February
- Which suggests that the pace of decline in the labour market seems to be slowing
So how are specific sectors doing? Redundancies have recently been highest in distribution, hotels and restaurants, and manufacturing. Not financial services.
And cities? Regionally, the traditional manufacturing bits of the West Midlands, Yorkshire & Humber, and South Wales have been the worst-hit. Cities with the highest increase in JSA include the usual suspects. Since Feb 08 (when the labour market hit its peak):
- Hull's JSA claimant count rate has increased from 4.8% to 8.2%
- Nearly 4k new people in Barnsley have signed on for JSA - which partly explains the BNP support there
- In Birmingham, over 35k extra have signed on - total JSA claimants there are almost 100k
But some unusual suspects have been hit, too - including in the Greater South East. Swindon has seen the sharpest increase in JSA claimants since Feb 08 - largely due to its heavy focus on autos and distribution. Milton Keynes is having a bad time as well - and Northampton. And recent sharp rises have happened in cities like Luton and Reading.
As we said in Cities Outlook 2009, not every city has been "well-placed to weather the storm". Only cities like Cambridge and York can genuinely claim to have escaped the worst effects of the recession so far.
The picture is kind of the same in the US. Check out the MetroMonitor from our friends at the Brookings Institute - they say that the pain of the recession there has been unevenly distributed, and is having highly varied impacts on different metropolitan areas. Ditto here.
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