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Birmingham Labour Market Assessment 2000

The Birmingham Labour Market Assessment 2000 focuses on change in the City's Labour Market over the next decade with a particular focus on resident employment. There is an overview which sets out the context and broad theme of the publication, with the key messages divided into three sections:

Section One: presents the BEIC forecasts for total employment in Birmingham to 2010 by sector, occupation and tenure. Key findings are:

• The City's long term decline in total employment was reversed in the mid 1990s, with the underlying trend indicating a long term expansion in employment. Overall, employment is forecast to increase by 24,700 between 2000 and 2010.
• Managers, professionals & associate professionals (forecast to expand by 38,000) together with occupations providing services direct to the public (forecast to contribute an extra 15,300 jobs), both have good employment growth prospects to 2010.
• Occupations showing a long term decline in employment are principally those associated with manufacturing.
• Full-time employment is falling as a proportion of total employment (with absolute male full-time employment actually falling), whilst part-time employment is growing rapidly.
• Self-employment has recently grown very slowly compared to the 1980's and this trend is forecast to continue to 2010.

Section Two: examines the factors that will influence employment growth and local resident's access to job opportunities. Key finding are:

• Whether local residents will fully share in the forecast level of employment growth will depend on the success of local employment and regeneration agencies in tackling the problems of social exclusion and in particular - breaking the inter-generational cycle of poverty perpetuated by the relatively high incidence of households in Birmingham with no working adults.

Section Three presents the results of the BEIC's specially developed 'Birmingham Residents Employment Model' designed to explore a series of scenarios relating to resident employment opportunities to 2010. Key findings are:

• Our baseline forecast (Scenario 1) estimates that the number of residents in employment will grow by 25,000 between 1997 and 2010.
• In Scenario 2 we estimate that over 12,000 more residents would be employed as managers and administrators if Birmingham's occupational structure converged to the UK average by 2010.

This publication is the third in a trinity of publications to mark the millennium, the other publications being the Birmingham Economic Review 2000 and Birmingham Sectoral Review 2000.