Jobseekers total doubles in city over the last year

THE number of jobseekers has nearly doubled in Birmingham over the past year, with 84,435 people now out of work.

And the city has the third highest rate of unemployment in the country.

New claimant count figures published this week have revealed the devastating impact of coronavirus and lockdowns on the city’s economy and people’s lives.

They show the number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, or who are required to look for work as part of their Universal Credit claim. These are calculated differently to the official unemployment figures, which are not broken down by local authority.

In Birmingham, the number of claimants rose by 41,445 over the past year. It means 11.5 per cent of the population aged 16 to 64, around one in nine of the total, are now claiming unemployment benefit.

And it means the city has one of the worst claimant rates in the country. The only places with more people out of work are Blackpool, with a claimant rate of 12.4 per cent, and Haringey in London, where the rate is 11.8 per cent.

Manchester’s claimant rate is 9.3 per cent, and in Liverpool it is 8.9 per cent. The figures show the claimant rates on March 11. Across the West Midlands conurbation, the number of claimants has more than doubled. It rose by 93,295 people over the past year, to reach 176,825 people. This includes Birmingham, Solihull, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton.

Jonathan Reynolds MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, said: “Unemployment is persistently high yet the Government’s programmes to get people back into work are still not up and running.

“These figures show more than half of the people losing their employment were under-25 but the Conservative’s struggling Kickstart scheme has created just 6,000 jobs.

“Those who have lost their jobs deserve so much better - Labour’s ‘Jobs Promise’ would guarantee young people out of work for six months a training or job placement and make sure no one is left out of work for more than a year.” Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, said: “Protecting jobs and the economy has been my main focus since this pandemic began - through the furlough scheme alone we have protected 11.2 million jobs. I will continue to put people at the heart of the Government’s response through our Plan for Jobs.”