Worcestershire Unemployment Figures for April 2012

The Worcestershire County Economic Summary for April 2012 shows that the unadjusted unemployment (JSA claimant) total for Worcestershire was 10,766 in April 2012, a decrease of 598 claimants from the previous month. The unemployment rate is 3.9%, down 0.2 %. This still compares favourably with the unemployment rates for the West Midlands region (6.7%) and England and Wales (5.6%).

The district with the highest unemployment rate is Worcester City (4.9%) and the districts with the lowest unemployment rate are Bromsgrove and Malvern Hills, (2.8%). In terms of urban centres, Kidderminster had the highest unemployment rate at 5.5% and the lowest was in Wythall (2.0%). The largest numerical drops in unemployment from last month were in Worcester (120) and Redditch (107) but all the other districts were close behind. There was a decrease of 198 compared with a year ago but this masks rises in Worcester Wychavon and Wyre Forest but larger falls in the other three districts. 

The male unemployment rate in Worcestershire is 4.7% (down by 0.3 % compared to January 2012), and the female rate was 2.8% down by just 0.1%.

As well as following the national and regional trend of a fall in overall claimant count, we also followed the trend with an increase in long-term unemployment. The proportion of claimants who have been in receipt of benefit for more than six months has increased by 2.4% to 41.1% between March and April 2012, and the proportion receiving benefits for more than 12 months has increased by 2.4% to 20.5% over the same period. This is now the highest proportion since November 2006 (when the information available goes back to) and is above the previous peak in July 2010, when the total number of claimants was approximately the same as now. Trying to make some sense of this in terms of numbers, claimants peaked in August 2009 at around 13,500, but claimants for more than six months (27% or 3,650 people) and 12 months (7% or 950 people) were lower. We are now looking at 41.1% over six months (4,425people) and 20.5% of claimants unemployed over 12 months (2,200 people).

There are no up to date figures on part-time working that would help compare with the national trend towards people working part-time because they are unable to get a full-time job but there is no reason to suppose that Worcestershire is any different in the regard. 

In April 2012 3,145 people aged 18-24 were claiming JSA benefit compared to 3,450 in March and 3,200 April last year. Of the 3,145, 2,765 had been claiming for up to one year, which is 6.7% of the 18-24 population, a decrease of 0.7 % compared to March and the same as the England average. Of the ten wards in the county with the highest percentages it is Greenlands in Redditch that has the highest number of unemployed young people at 95 (14.6%) and Oldington and Foley park in Kidderminster is second, having been highest for a long time at 14,5% and 75 young people unemployed. The tenth placed ward is Offmore and Comberton at 11.7% and 50 people unemployed. Out of the ten, three are in Redditch, there are two each in Wyre Forest, Worcester and Bromsgrove and one in Malvern Hills. However, the numbers do vary from month to month as do the positions in the list as we are dealing with comparatively small numbers of people. The encouraging news is that the percentages are down on last month and to a lesser degree a year ago, and the overall percentage at 6.7% is lower than March (7.4%) and April 2011 (7.5%).

The number of vacancies available at Job Centres in the County were 5,664 in April 2012, which was 49% higher than in March.

There were quite a few press stories reported about firms taking on staff or sites being developed that potentially could result in new jobs. There were also some stories about threatened redundancies.

Plans to redevelop the former British Sugar factory site in Worcestershire could create more than 400 jobs. Developers St Francis Group has submitted plans to Wyre Forest District Council for the site on Stourport Road. They include 250 homes, a care home, a hotel, shops, restaurants, footpaths and cycle ways

A New Worcester business that provides care for older people in their own homes is looking to create 50 jobs in the coming year. Despite only opening its doors at the beginning of the year, Home Instead Senior Care at Malvern Gate in Bromwich Road is already embarking on a large-scale recruitment drive.

More jobs could be created at a Worcester factory after Heinz announced plans to increase production. The food manufacturer said it intended to expand production of Lea and Perrins sauces by nearly a third to 12,500 tonnes by the end of 2013. Conservative MP for Worcester Robin Walker said it was unclear how many jobs would be created, but that it was good news for the city.

Businesses across Worcestershire are being urged to take advantage of millions of pounds worth of fresh Government funding. A new cash kitty worth £125 million has been launched which aims to benefit manufacturers looking to fund supply chains for their work. Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) said the pot, along with the already-established £1.4 billion Regional Growth Fund (RGF), gives county firms a good chance of securing welcome financial support.

Hundreds of workers are at risk of losing their jobs after a distribution firm announced plans for closure. Yodel could make 200 permanent members of staff redundant, while a number of agency workers also face losing their jobs. Some workers may consider relocating to other sites in the region.

Talks have begun to try to save 400 jobs following the proposed closure of a call centre in Worcester. On Wednesday the home shopping firm Shop Direct announced plans to shut its base on Newtown Road in the city. MP for Worcester Robin Walker said he was involved in talks to try to keep the jobs and that the closure was "not a done deal." The company plans to transfer 1,800 of its staff to services group Serco, which would manage customer contacts.

Being on the Edge and Being a Bridge

Below is the text of a 'Thought for the Week' about chaplaincy which I have written for the Diocese of Worcester website that has just been put up there.

Chaplaincy as a part of the Church's mission and ministry is growing. This is true in many sectors, not just through industrial mission visiting people in their places of work, but in hospital chaplaincy with many volunteer chaplains as well as in prisons where many people help at Sunday chapel services and in many other ways.

It is the number of volunteers that is growing - in most areas of chaplaincy the number of paid staff, like other parts of the Church's ministry, is decreasing. The number of volunteers is an opportunity for many more people to be involved but is also a challenge to maintain continuity and depth of involvement because most volunteers can give less time than paid staff. Those of us who are still paid to be chaplains find our role changing so that as well as keeping a hands-on involvement in some chaplaincy, we support, supervise, mentor and encourage as well as being on the look-out for new volunteers and new opportunites for chaplaincy to be offered.

In my role as Mission Development Offficer I now do these things both in encouraging people visiting workplaces for Faith at Work in Worcestershire (BCUIM also have volunteer chaplains in Dudley) and also in agriculture for the Chaplaincy for Agriculture and Rural Life. It goes without saying that if you would like to be a volunteer I'd be delighted to hear from you! All those I know who are volunteer chaplains find it very rewarding and interesting and feel they are serving God in what they are doing, which they feel is an extension of their church membership.

Clearly, chaplaincy in whatever role is about visiting people and holding conversations - and generally about listening more than speaking, about being concerned for the person you are with. But I'd like to offer a couple of ideas offered by two speakers at two different conferences about chaplaincy that I have recently attended - and I think they apply to many types of chaplaincy, not just the ones I'm involved with.

The first idea is that chaplains are a bridge - a bridge between the world and the church and the other way round. For a bridge to work it needs to be firmly anchored at both ends, so a chaplain needs to be firmly part of the church to know the faith they are grounded in, but also very much part of the world so they can speak the language and be understood and also see where God is at work.

The second idea is that of liminality, which is about being on the edge (and I suppose, linking these two ideas, a bridge is on the edge of each shore). Those of us who have been chaplains are well used to being on the edge of the church. We are also on someone else's territory so they set the ground-rules - they say what the conversation will be about, you don't go with some packaged idea to offer. The chaplain is on the edge of the ‘world' in the encounter too. But that very edginess, as well as sometimes being uncomfortable, means the chaplain has something to bring to each side of the encounter that challenges and can change. And if that change is of Christ then it may be about the transformation that is so much of what the Gospel (good news) is about in this Easter and soon to be Ascension and Pentecost season.

Austerity or Growth?

It seems that for many people austerity isn’t working.  The French people have voted for M. Hollande and Greece has rejected the parties that signed up to a bail-out deal that imposed stringent austerity and very difficult structural reforms.  Even in the UK the government, whilst sticking to the deficit reduction plan, is suggesting various ‘supply-side’ measures in the Queen’s Speech, including reducing red tape and cutting back on employment laws that might reduce business flexibility and competitiveness.

As far as M. Hollande is concerned it seems that, despite the rhetoric from Germany, Mrs Merkel will bend so that some kind of accommodation or at least a form of words can be found to reconcile their two positions.  Publicly, they are being more hard-line with Greece, perhaps dare it be said because they are smaller and can be bossed about, but in reality Greece holds considerable power.  Despite most Greeks not wanting to leave theEuro they could wreak considerable havoc if the markets and others get the jitters and see a precipice approaching.  It remains to be seen whether there are enough politicians in Greece who are prepared to see if a deal could be done that might satisfy the voters that can form a government or if the rhetoric of outright rejection will stand in the way and lead to another election with all the uncertainty that will bring.

Whilst in the long-term we must all live within our means, one has to wonder whether the present prescription is the best means to achieve that.  In the short-term Greece’s debt is un-repayable, which is why there has been a bail-out and effectively the writing off of some of it.  It is also clear that structural change has to come to Greece.  Some of the alleged practices on tax being optional for those on higher incomes and the early pensions said to be paid to many people and so on mean the country is clearly uncompetitive.  Many of these sorts of abuses have to stop.  It is difficult from the outside to know the detail and whether some of the claims are correct.  What is clear, though, is that austerity is leading to very high unemployment and as usual in those situations the poorest suffer most.  Even more stark is the situation in Spain.  Whilst it is said that some people drop out of the official economy into the cash economy, 24% unemployment and double that for young people surely cannot be sustainable or just.

At the same time I wonder about the tyranny of markets.  I suppose I would be anxious if I thought that some of my money or future income held by my bank or pension fund in who knows what kind of financial arrangement was at risk because of some potential default.  But we seem so beholden to the money markets that their ‘view’ trumps all others.  Of course, markets are really a collection of individual views that may well be based on partial information and which collectively do not always act rationally, despite economic theory.  And to some extent, markets only have power because they are allowed power.  At the moment it appears there may be another wobble in the bond markets about the stability of Spanish banks.  That is due to debt bubbles built up due to the property boom, but one can’t help wondering whether austerity is likely to work in Spain and other southern European countries where GDP is falling so that unless the level of debt falls quicker deficits actually get bigger rather than smaller.

I was interested, in a talk at the recent IndustrialMission Association national conference about the regeneration of Longbridge, to hear about modernist and post-modernist planning.  In the past, modernist planning was based on the big ideas – planning – of people like Le Corbusier and those involved in the New Towns movement (and having lived in Redditch I know something of how that was planned) but now we are in an era of post-modern planning, which depends on a developer and economics and markets to succeed.

I make no comment on the merits of different forms of planning; other than as a citizen I have no expertise, though I live on an undifferentiated housing estate built by many building firms that has two small shopping areas really best accessed by car, and we wonder why there is no sense of community.  Nor do I want to get drawn into a left-right argument about the merits of individual freedom and state intervention.

But as a Christian who has a pastoral concern for people at work and for those who have no work, I wonder how best the love of Christ should be shown in this situation.  Yes, we are all uniquely valued and cared for by God but that doesn’t seem to me to be an argument for individualism and pure market forces.  Mutuality and a concern for the weak are a part of Christian thinking, and indeed not just Christian thinking.  Whilst many now criticise the welfare state in the UK, which has perhaps gone beyond the safety net intended by its architects, including Archbishop William Temple, none the less it has been a part of our social settlement for the past 70 years.  It may in some cases allow a culture of dependency but we must also recognise that the climate of growth in the 1950s and 60s that allowed some support to tide one over occasional misfortunes has changed for many in the UK where not only have we got a cyclical downturn but also a structural one.

This is the major challenge faced by all of Europe, not just France with its much vaunted social model that many think is unsustainable, or Greece that was less than honest about its financial situation as well as taking advantage of policies in the Euro area that encouraged over-expansion.  Western Europe (some eastern parts of the EU may be more like parts of the Far East) must recognise not just greater competition from China and other growing parts of the world but also that socially as well as economically we have become focussed on consumption and individual satisfaction and comfort.  Most biblical comment about consumption is critical (it is better to give than to receive, the rich man and his barns, etc.), perhaps because it was an era in which most people were still having to work hard to make a living, but also because it says something about our nature as created by God that we are made to be creative and productive.

Perhaps this kind of debate is needed alongside the economic sticks of austerity.  We also need to differentiate between borrowing to fund consumption, which surely is bad deficit spending, and diverting funds into investment that will make us more efficient and competitive.  This, of course, would be a version of Keynesian economics that the Germans, with their history of anxiety about inflation would not recognise, but one might hope that a clear path set out to invest in areas that would get the economy moving and through that inject spending into the wider economy might be recognised as a credible way forward – one would hope that the spending would be in the hands of those who, finding new work would spend it on good things and not just frivolous consumption!

There is a tension in this between growth and pressure on the environment and a longer-term debate is needed about the shape of our economy if growth is not sustainable.  That is a huge issue about distribution of resources and benefits that we have not even begun to have yet.  In the short-term, however, there are no shortage of green investment programmes that would be possible. All of this requires us to ask where the money is at the moment, for whilst we focus on those who are in deficit there must also be an opposite amount of surplus, though it may not be equally distributed.  What those in surplus need to recognise is that though they may have put their house in order by accepting painful measures that enable their success now (like Germany ten years or so ago) none the less their surpluses cannot continue indefinitely if those with deficits struggle to make ends meet.

Some have characterised our present situation as zombie economics – just keep going because we don’t accept the alternatives of either right wing supply-side measures or policies to promote growth.  Whilst it is going to take a long time to unwind the debt we have accumulated unless we can come up with some imaginative ways of mitigating it or creating some economic momentum, it means we will continue to bump along the bottom for a long time yet.  What worries me are the large number of people, especially young people, who will pay the price in unemployment and under-employment, opportunities lost and lives blighted.

Unemployment in Worcestershire - March 2012

Unemployment in the County (on the claimant count) fell last month, more or less reversing the increase in February and mirroring the national and regional falls – in the headline rate at least; the national claimant count increased by 3,600 to 1.61M, the highest level since October 2009.

Further information about unemployment and many other economic indicators can be found in the monthly Worcestershire Economic Summary.  National information for this month can be accessed from this BBC website and they also produce a useful graphic (though because of the statistical anomalies in the way the County Council produces it’s percentages compared with the ONS the two sets of figures are not directly comparable).

The unadjusted unemployment total for Worcestershire was 11,364 (4.1%) in March 2012, which is a decrease of 455 (0.1%) JSA claimants from the previous month.  The county rate still compares favourably with the unemployment rates for the West Midlands region (6.9%) and England and Wales (5.8%).  Unemployment also fell in Worcestershire as compared with this time last year (by 170), whereas nationally it has increased by 150,000 on the claimant count and 190,000 on the more widely used headline rate of people available for work.

The district with the highest unemployment rate is Worcester City (5.1%) and the lowest is Malvern Hills, (3.0%).  In terms of urban centres, Kidderminster had the highest unemployment rate at 5.7% and Wythall had the lowest at 2.4%.  The biggest falls in those claiming benefits were in Redditch (down 122) and Worcester (down 115) compared with last month, although Worcester was still 140 higher than a year ago compared with a fall of 104 in Redditch.  Wyre Forest saw a fall of 39 claimants last month but is still 177 higher than this time last year.  The opening of the new ASDA store in Worcester with 350 new jobs may have had an impact on the figures, though many of the staff have been employed for some time training in readiness for the store opening.  

The male unemployment rate in Worcestershire is 5.0%, compared to the female rate of 2.9%.  Both the male and the female unemployment rates fell by 0.2 percentage points compared to February 2012.

Against the headline drop in claimants, there has been a worrying growth in the numbers out of work for six and 12 months or more.  For those unemployed for more than six months the figure has increased by 2.2 % to 38.7% between February and March and the figure for more than 12 months has increased by 1.8 % to 18.1% over the same period.  Nationally, Liam Byrne, the Opposition spokesman, said that the numbers who are long-term unemployed is up 50% on a year ago.  In Worcestershire the six month claimant rate was around 11% and the 12 month rate 27% in March 2011.

Youth unemployment showed a slight improvement compared with last month with 3,450 people aged 18-24 claiming JSA benefit compared to 3,600 in February and 3,350 March last year. Of these in March 2012, there were 3,080 people aged 18-24 that had been claiming for up to one year, which is 7.4% of the 18-24 population and a decrease of 0.5% compared to February 2012.  This is still marginally higher than the England average.  The ward with the highest proportion of unemployed young people continues to be Oldington and Foley Park in Kidderminster at 17.4%, which is the same rate as last month and in March last year.  As I have previously observed, the ten wards listed in the County with the highest youth unemployment changes slightly from month to month but they always remain the same group of areas which figure in other indices of deprivation. More generally, the trend in the County shows that the overall percentage of claimants aged 18-24 claiming for over 12 months started to increase more rapidly, from around 2% of all claimants aged 18-24 in October 2009 to 8.6% in June 2010,from which point it started to fall. However towards the end of 2011 the figures started to rise again and the current figure in March 2012 stands at 10.6%.  

The number of vacancies in Worcestershire was 3,802 in March 2012. This is 14.4% lower than in February 2012 but 24.5% higher than in March last year.  There is continuing controversy about part-time working and ‘under-employment, where people are doing part-time jobs because they can’t get full-time work even though that is what they want.  (Under-employment can also refer to people working at a level below their qualifications but that isn’t included in the claims and counter claims here).  Nationally, the ONS says the number of people having to settle for part-time work because they can't find full-time jobs has risen 89,000 to 1.4 million, its highest level since records began in 1992. This was criticised by Brendan Barber, the TUC general secretary, who said, “a record [number of people] are now stuck in involuntary part-time work."  The Government see it as a trend in people, especially women with children, coming back into the work-place.

We continue to be fortunate with our unemployment rate in Worcestershire (never forgetting the difficulties it represents for each person that is unemployed) compared with some other parts of the country including many parts of the West Midlands not far from us.  Humber, and the North West.   As the BBC graphic I referred to earlier shows, the two constituencies with the highest unemployment rate in the country are in the West Midlands: Birmingham Ladywood (12.4%) and Birmingham Hodge Hill (10.6%) and the fourth highest is also in Birmingham (Sparkbrook at 9.6%).  The national headline figure is 2.65 million people out of work, down by 35,000 in the quarter to February, giving a jobless rate of 8.3 per cent.  For whatever reason, it seems difficult to obtain figures on this basis for Worcestershire, but it is hoped that the figures in this summary are useful.

Many U.S. immigrants' children seek American dream abroad

Following on from my previous posts about more rapid growth outside the developed economies, the following caught my eye (from Daily Digest: Sojourners' - a US Christian pressure group - summary of today's top news stories):

In growing numbers, experts say, highly educated children of immigrants to the United States are uprooting themselves and moving to their ancestral countries. They are embracing homelands that their parents once spurned but that are now economic powers.  (New York Times)

It seems many now see opportunites in entreprenuerial, rapidly-growing developing countries that are not so apparent in more more established economies.

Making Money Around the World

In my last post about what I learnt at a CCLA seminar I said that, in suggesting that better returns were to be obtained from overseas growth funds, the point was made that it depends on where the money is made, not where the company is quoted on the stock exchange or where its headquarters are.  The bigger returns, and faster economic growth, are in fast developing countries, not the developed world of the UK, Europe and the US.

I found this article on the BBC website, which begins with looking at the controversy about Amazon not paying any corporation tax in the UK despite their substantial sales because their European headquarters are in Luxemburg, but it goes on to describe how multi-national/trans-national companies operate around the globe and use transfer pricing to minimise liabilities and move profits to the lowest tax jurisdictions.  Some of that may make analysing companies' activities for investment (let alone tax) purposes more difficult, but the article gives a useful insight into the activities of some of our household and other names that operate around the world and is a reminder that sometimes we in our locality are a very small part of a much bigger picture.  

What Future for the UK?

Yesterday I was able to go to a CCLA (Churches, Charities and Local Authorities) Investment Seminar as our Diocesan Secretary and a member of the Diocesan Resources Board were unable to go and kindly passed the invitation onto me.

As the name suggests the CCLA invests funds on behalf of a wide variety of trustees of charitable and similar bodies.  The seminar was intended to help trustees to better understand the variety of options available to them in the current complex economic environment.  It was an interesting insight for me to look at stock market, bond market and other investment areas in contrast to my more normal habitat of thinking about the effects of the policies of various organisations on their employees or about the policies that might influence economic growth and regeneration in the county and region where I work.

I was particularly struck by the views expressed about the UK as a place to invest, which I will come to later, but it was also interesting to see how the investment policies of charitable trustees might differ from many of those who influence the way our investment markets work.  Although charities might need to hold money for relatively short periods to bring forward for a particular project, in many cases they are there for the long haul.  Because of this, they are more interested in a reliable income stream, and fluctuations in the capital value of assets is less important as they are unlikely to want, or in many cases to be able, to crystallise the asset.  I think, for example of our Diocesan Resources Board, where the contribution of investments to the total income of the diocese needs to be regular and reliable to enable the work of the diocese (including the payment of clergy) to be funded.  (I have no role in decisions in this area but I imagine this to be the case).  This means a longer view, with enough growth to counter inflation, but where income is important, will be very different to many investors where capital appreciation is the main objective.  It flies contrary to all those executive remuneration policies where big bonuses are payable for ‘enhancing shareholder value’.

However, the thing I most want to focus on is what was said about where one might want to invest.  In the current environment it seems that equities (shares) are seen as potentially offering good returns with, in many cases good dividends for income and sufficient capital growth to offer a long-term defence against inflation.  The really interesting question, though, is in which shares, or more precisely where, one might want to invest.  To quote from one of the PowerPoint slides: ‘Income is growing faster outside the UK’.  It then showed regional dividend yields and growth rates:

                                                Current Yield                      Annualised 5 year dividend growth

                                                                %                                                            %

UK                                                          3.2                                                          -1.2

US                                                          1.9                                                          1.6

Europe                                                 3.5                                                          1.0

Japan                                                    2.3                                                          4.4

Asia Pacific (ex Japan)                  2.8                                                          7.7

What this shows is a reflection of the forecast economic growth rates for various parts of the globe, for example by 2016, with the Euro area at 1.7%, UK2.7%, US 3.4%, Central/Eastern Europe and Latin America 3.9%, Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa 5.1%, and developing Asia (including China and India) 8.6%.

The conclusion in choosing your investment fund is that the developed world, including the UK is not a good prospect.  One might wish to choose a global equity income fund (though interestingly, CCLA’s fund still has about 60% of its assets allocated in the UK, Europe and North America).  However, the key point is that one should look at where the profits are made, not where the company is based.  The company might, therefore, be listed on the London Stock Exchange but the key question is how much of its profits are made in those places that are growing quickly – which are not UK, Europe or North America.

Now, of course, it is one thing to analyse this dispassionately when choosing where to invest for the best return.  It is another question when the implication (or more) is that there is not going to be much growth for us here in this country.  That raises some serious questions when we talk about economic development, regeneration and jobs here in Worcestershire and in the rest of the UK. Especially when one reckons that outside London and the South-east, which have continued to grow economically in recent times, that effectively means the rest of us have been enduring our own local recession – the more so for those declining parts of the Midlands and the North.

We were told that when one takes into account currency movements that will reflect the declining economic strength of the developed world and the growing strength of the rest, we will see relative declines in our standards of living.  I guess the question then is does a relative decline matter, if in absolute terms we are still pretty well off?  Within that, though, there is a distribution question, for, as we know, when there is pressure on living standards people feel it much more keenly that when there is growth.

We can crunch the numbers (and it is important that we do) but what does this mean for real people who are affected by these changes?  We rejoice for those in parts of the world where they may be moving out of poverty (if the rewards are properly shared) but what kind of reappraisal of priorities might this suggest for those who may be affected in the reverse direction?