Long-term claimant count rises in Manchester

THE health of Greater Manchester’s economy remains in a somewhat uncertain state, with the number of long-term benefit unemployed people in the area increasing by 5.7% in April – to 26,400.

Figures from the Manchester Monitor, a monthly survey compiled by strategy body New Economy Manchester, also showed that footfall in city centre stores dropped by 11.6% during the month.

However, some of this can be explained by the greater number of people deciding to take holidays around the period comprising Easter and the Royal Wedding holidays. This also helps to explain the 32.6% rise in passengers using Manchester Airport during the period – up to 1.4m passengers.

The monitor also used longer term data recently released by the Office for National Statistics to point out that Greater Manchester was responsible for three quarters of the population growth experienced during the North West between 2009 and 2010.

Greater Manchester experienced population of growth of 37,800 during the period, taking the total population within the ten boroughs up to 2.63m people.

Baron Frankal, director of economic strategy at New Economy, said: “There are some positive signs in July’s Manchester Monitor with Greater Manchester acting as the key driver of population growth in the North West and passenger numbers at Manchester Airport increasing substantially.

“However, rising costs and inflation is maintaining a level of caution when it comes to both consumer and business expenditure.

“There is also a sharp rise in long-term unemployment which of course, can only be offset by increasing the number of job vacancies. 

“Fortunately, Greater Manchester does have a number of projects that can help with a potential recovery such as the Sharp Project which officially launched last week, and MediaCityUK now gaining momentum.”