In this blog we take a look at unemployment throughout the country as of census 2011 and a closer look a key locations where unemployment is particularly high.
Unemployment – A person is classed as unemployed if not only out of work, but also actively looking for work and available to start work within a fortnight (BBC, 2015).
We can see a real North and South divide here. There are only a few areas in the South of the UK where a high concentration of unemployment can be seen within a major town or city. In the main, these areas are dotted around fairly sporadically. However, as we reach the Midlands it’s noticeable that there is a large amount of red in and around Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Walsall.
As we continue to move north from here, the amount of red areas increase dramatically. We can see higher levels of unemployment within Liverpool, Hull, Middlesbrough and Glasgow.
As we take a closer look into Birmingham we can see that around the centre and moving North contains the highest levels of unemployment with around 75,000 people actively looking for work. There are also a number of red areas in Wolverhampton and Walsall with around 30,000 unemployed.
The second image highlights the areas with the lowest levels of disposable income across the area, as we would expect these areas closely follow the areas of high unemployment.
In Liverpool, we can see the areas of high unemployment almost completely arc around the city centre and move towards the north of the city. In the Wirral, the unemployment is all focused towards the north of Birkenhead with approximately 12,000 people unemployed.
Again when we look at the wealth distribution across the area, the areas with the lowest wealth match the high red areas of unemployment.
Glasgow has a fairly sporadic spread of unemployment throughout the city but there’s definitely a higher concentration of red towards the North East. Across the city, there are around 48,000 people actively looking for a job.
The spread of wealth shows that the majority of the city in comparison to the others fall within the lower wealth bands.
For some more information and articles on UK unemployment, please take a look at the following links.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10604117
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/9142942/10-worst-cities-for-unemployment.html