December’s edition of the West Midlands Economic Monitor is now available for you to keep up to date with recent developments in the region.
The headlines for this month’s monitor are:
- Headline West Midlands business activity—accounting for services and manufacturing—has fallen to 49.4, returning to contraction
- In 2018/19 there were 31,740 apprenticeship starts across the WMCA area, which is an increase of 8.7% or 2,540 in absolute numbers from 2017/18.
- The WMCA has the second-highest percentage of people who work satisfactory hours at 82.9% across all city regions, this is above the UK average of 80.3% in 2018.
- In 2018/19 there were 1,960 additional affordable rented dwellings completed.
- In 2018 There were 170,475 active enterprises in the WMCA in 2018 an increase of 3.3% above the UK average growth of 0.5%
- Birmingham’s largest residential tower has been approved for construction despite initial objections by Birmingham airport.
- The WMCA region total GVA increased from £101bn in 2017 to £105.1bn in 2018. This equates to a 4.0% increase which is above the UK average growth of 3.4%.
Download the latest edition of the monitor
The West Midlands Economic Monitor was written by Ben Brittain, Policy and Data Analyst, City-REDI, University of Birmingham.
Disclaimer:
The opinions presented here belong to the author rather than the University of Birmingham.
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