40yrs after misery of Miners’ Strike, the struggle continues
Communities still blighted by lack of jobs and below-average wages
FORMER coalfield communities are still struggling with unemployment, 40 years after the Miners’ Strike, a new report has found.
Figures show the rate of job growth in coal-mining areas has been far slower than in regional cities.
There are just 57 employee jobs for every 100 residents of working age, The State of the Coalfields 2024 report revealed. The national average is 73, and 88 in regional cities.
Former mining communities of County Durham, Northumberland, South Wales and North Derbyshire have all experienced slow job growth. Northumberland, once famed for its pits serving towns such as Ashington, is one of the areas hardest hit, with the number of job opportunities rising by just
3% from 2012 to 2022.
The shortage of local jobs means that many coalfield residents now have to travel for work.
And the quality of jobs available are below the standard of other areas, according to the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, which works with more than 700 grassroots organisations.
More than half of employed residents do manual work, and their hourly pay is between 6% and 7% below the national average. Warehouses now employ 175,000 people in the coalfields – almost
The full benefits of job growth have not filtered through
PROF STEVE FOTHERGILL CO-AUTHOR OF REPORT
as many as the coal industry itself prior to the 1984/5 strike.
Prof Steve Fothergill, co-author of the Sheffield Hallam University report, said: “Britain’s coalfields have moved on since the job losses of the 1980s and 90s.
“There has been substantial progress in new job creation and the former coalfields emerged with new roles in regional economies. But the full benefits of job growth have not always filtered through.”
Almost 600,000 people living in coalfield areas – one in six of all adults of working age – claim outof-work benefits.
County Durham and South Wales have the joint highest percentage of these at 19.2%.
Former coalfields would be the most deprived parts of the UK if they were in one region alone, according to the five-yearly report. And the CRT is calling on the individual UK Governments to do more to support the economy of Britain’s hardest-hit communities.
The trust’s chair Linda McAvan said: “We are seeing positive steps towards improving the economy in the former coalfields. However, it is concerning that our progress is slower than in other parts of the country.”
THE consequences of Margaret Thatcher’s brutal closure of the coal mines is still being felt to this day.
A report on the country’s former mining areas found they have higher rates of unemployment and fewer well-paid jobs than the national average.
Forty years ago the unions fought a brave but ultimately unsuccessful battle to save the pits, their jobs and their communities.
It is to the lasting shame of the Thatcher government it then abandoned the people whose livelihoods it had destroyed.