Data from recruitment giant Reed suggests Manchester has become an employment hotspot to rival London.
Reed data analysed by Bloomberg revealed that, since March 2020, Manchester has recorded a higher concentration of jobs advertised per 10,000 workers than even the capital, with over 200 postings per 10,000 workers on a rolling three-monthly average. The government should perhaps not take this as empirical evidence of success for its “levelling up” agenda in the North.
Outside the success of Manchester, the data, which covered towns and cities in England with a population of 100,000+, showed that many “Red Wall” towns and cities in the North are still lagging behind the South in terms of employment and opportunity.
Thousands of voters in those areas — former Labour strongholds that switched allegiance in 2019 in the hope the Conservatives would bring greater prosperity – have seen little evidence of “levelling up” success, the data suggests.
London still offers the largest pool of new jobs, although it slips to 21st when figures are adjusted by postings-per-population Elsewhere, the data shows a country limited employment prospects in large pockets of the North East and North West alike.
Aside from Manchester, the only areas of England with more than 200 average monthly job postings per 10,000 local workers over the past three years are Cambridge, Milton Keynes and Reading — all within a 60-mile radius of London.
At the other end of the jobs rankings are some of Britain’s most neglected towns and cities, with seven to 10 times fewer listings. Those include Birkenhead, Hull and Sunderland. In Birkenhead, which was once a shipbuilding powerhouse, there have been just 29 job postings each month per 10,000 workers on average since the start of the pandemic.
“Clusters of expertise and investment exist across the UK, challenging the notion of a strict north-south divide,” said James Reed, chairman of Reed Recruitment. He called for a “more nuanced approach to levelling up.” He also predicted flexible work practices since the pandemic will lead to a “more even spread of job postings across regions” that could help the government achieve its aims.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt has previously dismissed claims that areas of the UK are being forgotten. “We have already allocated nearly £4 billion in over 200 projects across the country through the first two rounds of the Levelling Up Fund,” he told Parliament in his budget speech on March 15.
Bloomberg adds that the fact that there are “so many towns and cities with so few jobs available seems surprising at a time when vacancies nationwide are near a record high and business lobby groups complain about staff shortages.”
In last month’s budget, Hunt unveiled plans for 12 new low-tax “investment zones,” including in Greater Manchester, Liverpool, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and Tees Valley, and set aside more than £760 million for regeneration and infrastructure projects, with a particular focis on attracting jobs in traditionally high-paying sectors like accounting, IT and telecoms.
