West Midlands Economic Monitor: November 2019

Published: Posted on

November’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 risen to 50.6, the second-highest in the country, behind London.
  • The West Midlands was one of the four regions with GDP growth above the UK level from 2018 Q1 to 2019 Q1 at 2.3% compared to the UK average of 2.2 %.
  • In the year ending June 2019, the employment rate in the WMCA (3-LEP area) was 71.7% (1,848,300 people) compared to 75.5% for the UK overall.
  • Research shows that up to 70% of Wholesale & Retail industry businesses in the WM sell goods to (non-UK) EU nations, compared 22% for the services sector as a whole.
  • Recently released data shows that in 2019 the West Midlands area exported £16.6bn worth of goods across the world and imported £15.3bn, leading to a trade surplus of £1.3bn.
  • New data shows that in August the WMCA area had 3,976 households who had their Housing Benefit capped, a decrease of 27.8% (- 1,528 households) from August 2018 compared to a 25.3% decrease for Great Britain.

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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