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I am grateful for some research from Michael Taylor of ColdWater Economics who pulled out some fascinating facts from the latest unemployment figures.
Our media still focus on the South East as being the primary beneficiary and I find it very frustrating sometimes when you talk about the success outside the pampered south and seem to be greeted with incredulity. Sheffield still seems tarnished by The Full Monty – yet when you look at the numbers you will find some astonishing figures.
Over the last two years, Yorkshire’s employment rose by 168,000, or by 6%, whilst employment in England as a whole has risen by 874,000, or by 3.4%. “No other region, including London, or the South East, has been adding jobs at anything like this rate” writes Mr. Taylor. To add to this month-on-month Yorkshire added 24,000 in November, whilst England added 45,000. It also now seems that Yorkshire now employs as many people as Scotland.
This development though has not been driven by a housing, consumer or credit boom, but rather some nicely ‘old fashioned’ areas including manufacturing and services (especially finance related).
