Todays Times newspaper names Preston as one of the top ten most resilient places in the UK during the recession. The story is from a report by a group called the Centre for Cities. It says the claimant count has increased by 1.3% (2,882 people) in Preston between February 2008 and November 2009. This compares with the lowest, Cambridge, with 0.8% increase and the highest, Hull, with 3.7%. Surprisingly perhaps Blackpool was slightly better than Preston while Wigan and Rochdale did quite a bit worse.
Without reading the report there are a lot of unanswered questions. For example, the report says the government should put money into Swindon because of its high increase. Yet not long ago Swindon was the place with zero unemployment. Is it not more important to say how many are claiming, not just the change since 2008.
Swindon has lost 3,813 jobs which although over twice the percentage of Preston is a lot less than double the number. If Preston had 3.1% it would be 6,800 and one of the highest numbers. So percentage isn’t telling a full story either.
Why are Preston and Blackpool relatively unchanged? Is it that many people are working in the public sector or on government projects? If so, what happens if the government starts cutting the public sector later and the money has gone into Swindon.
If Preston was one of the worst the increase would be over double which would be another 3,000 on the dole. A lot of people. Take Birmingham, it has an increase of 41,000. That is serious stuff.
So to the 2,882 who have lost their jobs and probably some more who don’t claim, this ‘resilience’ is not really good news and they’ve as much right to government help as anyone else. The M4 corridor is a job magnet, Swindon will soon be doing fine without help.