How logistics, freight and fulfillment centres are keeping East Midlands jobless total low

UNEMPLOYMENT in the East Midlands has reached an almost record low.

Latest figures show the region has an unemployment rate of 3.5 per cent, lower than the UK average of 4.1 per cent.

Job experts have credited the logistics sector for helping to provide work, assisting Leicestershire’s recovery from the pandemic.

Chris Hobson, director of policy and external affairs at the East Midlands Chamber, said: “It has always been a strength for the region but I think logistics as a sector has always gone under the radar and has been taken for granted a little bit.

“People tend not to think about how they get their goods supplied to their door or supermarket shelves, they just assume that they will be there.

“But the East Midlands has long been the centre for logistics.

“Right now, these businesses are growing and trends show a greater shift toward shopping online and this is an industry that is growing.

“I think the East Midlands has demonstrated it is well placed for those businesses to come and base themselves here.

“More companies are deciding to expand in the East Midlands because of where we are.”

Last year, Amazon opened a fulfillment centre near Hinckley, creating about 700 jobs at the 82-acre Hinckley Park industrial estate.

The business park, off the A5, also includes a 39-acre DPD super hub, with the development as a whole promising to contribute about £47 million to the local economy.

East Midlands Airport, as well as being a tourism hub for the region, is also the UK’s largest freight airport and acts as the point of entry for many of the products British consumers receive from abroad.

Plans were also approved in November 2021 for an 86-acre business park at Wood Farm, near Stanton Under Bardon, to serve the logistics sector.

Plans have also been filed for a logistics hub off the A5, near Hinckley.

The developer hopes its complex will create more than 3,000 jobs, with Hinckley-based logistics group Syncreon set to take on one of the warehouses.