Manchester celebrates a positive year all round, with employment up 3.2%

The State of the City report has been released on the Manchester City Council website giving an insight to the city’s strengths and weaknesses – as well as priorities for the future.

Estimates suggest that by mid-2013 Manchester’s population had reached 514k, with projections showing an increase to 543k by 2021 – far surpassing the community strategy target for 2015 of 480k.

Between 2001 and 2013 Manchester grew at an average annual rate of 1.6%, over twice the average for England as a whole.

Manchester, together with other southern districts of Greater Manchester, generated an economic output of £34.8 billion in 2012 – a 3% increase on the previous year.

In terms of Gross Value Added (GVA) per head of resident population, Manchester outperforms similar regional and national areas – rising from £22,807 in 2011 to £23,476 in 2012.

Consistent with the city’s GVA increase, the number of businesses in the city grew by around 20% between 2004 and 2012 compared to an average growth rate of 10% in other Core Cities.

Jobs growth has been similarly impressive with the latest data (2011-12) showing an annual increase of 3.2% in the number of people working in the city.

There is also limited sign of improvement in the city’s employment rate in the last two years increasing to almost 62%, with the number of residents claiming benefits decreasing from 24% working population to just 16%.

Leader of Manchester City Council, Sir Richard Leese, said: “The State of the City report contains a great wealth of information that does show encouraging signs of progress set against a backdrop of fewer and squeezed resources.

“Manchester remains a place where people want to live, work and invest – as well as visit. However, as in previous reports, there is no attempt to underplay the real challenges the city still faces and we will continue to face those challenges in an open and transparent way. “