Despite signs of stabilisation at a national level, the road to recovery will be long for many cities

Today’s labour market statistics show that the labour market continues to stabilise at a national level but the road to recovery will be a long one for many cities.

Last year marked a return to rising unemployment, as the economic recovery has faltered and the public sector has continued to shed jobs. The cities hit hardest at the height of the recession have yet again seen some of the largest rises in JSA claimants. Despite showing signs of recovery in 2010, over the last year, claimant rates in Hull and Grimsby rose by ten times the rate of more buoyant cities such as Reading and Cambridge.

Every city faces a different set of labour market and wider economic challenges. What is right for Hull and Doncaster will not be right for Bristol and Brighton.  There is a real opportunity for the Chancellor to use the Budget next week to commit to giving cities the powers and resources they need to respond to their unique circumstances. Put cities in the driving seat and they will step up to the challenge.

Analysis by Paul Swinney and Naomi Clayton from Centre for Cities. 

For interview requests, please contact Rachel Tooby, External Affairs Manager – 020 7803 4316 / 07748 183 026 / r.tooby@centreforcities.org

Notes to editors:

Also available on today’s data release:

• City-by-city fact sheet on youth claimant data
• Cities hit hardest, and the ten that have fared best
• City-by-city table of JSA claimants

Further city-by-city data on a wide range of indicators including housing, business and environment is available from www.citiesoutlook.org

The Centre for Cities uses the Department for Communities and Local Government Primary Urban Area (PUA) definition of a city for the English urban areas included in Cities Outlook 2012.  Primary Urban Areas are an aggregate of local authorities that make up the ‘built-up’ area of a city, defined as having a population of 125,000 or more.

PUA data only exists for English cities. For Welsh and Scottish cities, we have used the corresponding local authority area, with the exception of tightly-bounded Glasgow, where we have defined the city as an aggregate of five local authorities: West Dunbartonshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Renfrewshire and Glasgow City. Belfast has been defined as the aggregate of Belfast City, Carrickfergus, Castlereagh, Lisburn, Newtownabbey and North Down.  The full breakdown is available at www.centreforcites.org/puas