The West Midlands continues to be battered by rising unemployment due to the decline in manufacturing, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ analysis of recent unemployment figures.

Yesterday, the Office for National Statistics announced that unemployment in the UK had hit 2.4m.

The West Midlands remains particularly reliant on hard-hit manufacturing sectors, while the East Midlands has seen the smallest rise in unemployment, says John Hawksworth, head of macroeconomics at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
This perhaps reflects greater focus on services and light manufacturing that have been less hard hit by the global recession over the past year, he suggests.

 
Hawksworth says: “Manufacturing now accounts for less than 10% of total UK employment, but nonetheless accounted for almost half of net UK job losses over the year to March 2009, according to the Workforce Jobs survey figures published today.

“The West Midlands, as the most manufacturing-intensive region, has seen the highest rise in unemployment over the past year and has now overtaken the North East as the UK region with the highest unemployment rate.

“The East Midlands, the South East and the East have seen the smallest rises in unemployment rates over the past year, but no region has been immune to the effects of the recession. Total UK unemployment is still on a clear rising trend and looks to be on course to reach 3m by Spring 2010.”