Recession & Unemployment in Industrial Britain - 02/02/2010

The Industrial Communities Alliance (ICA) is a network of local authorities in the industrial areas of Scotland, England and Wales that was established in 2007. Their aim is to lobby for the economic, social and environmental renewal of the areas covered by its member councils.

The ICA has given SURF kind permission to share one of their recent reports, The Impact of Recession on Unemployment in Industrial Britain, with SURF network members. A summary follows, and the report in full is available for download by clicking on the file at the bottom of the page (PDF format).

Summary

This report examines the impact of recession on unemployment in industrial Britain. It takes a much wider view of ‘unemployment’ than usually the case and presents new estimates of the real level of unemployment in a range of districts and counties across England, Scotland and Wales.

The first part of the report explains how Britain’s industrial communities entered the recession still nursing the pain of earlier job losses and with only a fragile and partial recovery in place.

The second part of the report shows how the recession has impacted particularly hard on manufacturing output and employment.

The third and main part of the report presents new estimates of unemployment. Over the years, much unemployment has become ‘hidden’ and as a result the claimant count measure, which counts the numbers on Jobseeker’s Allowance, has become a highly imperfect guide to local unemployment even though it continues to be widely quoted. The figures presented in this section of the report add in the non-claimant unemployed (identified by the government’s own Labour Force Survey) and the unemployed who have been diverted onto incapacity benefits. The latter group is especially numerous in older industrial Britain.

The report shows that most of industrial Britain entered the recession with a substantial pre-existing stock of unemployed. The recession has made the situation much worse. Industrial areas in Yorkshire, the North West and the West Midlands have experienced particularly large increases in unemployment, though elsewhere the pattern of change is more complex.

The report shows that, as a result, the real rate of unemployment in most of Britain’s industrial areas now exceeds 10 per cent – far more than the much lower figures suggested by the claimant count.

The final part of the report argues that five new policy priorities are needed:

• A re-balancing of the national economy in favour of manufacturing
• A selective short-time working subsidy to keep jobs and capacity intact
• More support for the workless, including older workers as well as the young
• Local delivery in economic regeneration
• A new priority for job creation

File: Click here to open