Be realistic – for better or worse
Date published:
Arlen Pettitt, Knowledge Development Manager, latest column for The Journal.
I’ve occasionally been accused of not being positive enough about the North East.
This is, of course, ridiculous.
If I wasn’t positive about the North East I wouldn’t start this column by mentioning the brilliant news that Britishvolt have secured £1.7bn in investment for an electric vehicle battery plant in Blyth.
I also wouldn’t mention the fantastic recent announcement that 9,000 HMRC jobs are moving into Newcastle City Centre.
And I definitely wouldn’t mention the success story of small business ART Health Solutions, who’ve raised £800,000 of investment to create jobs and develop an app aimed at workplace wellbeing.
There’s been recent positive news relating to jobs generally too.
Growth in the number of employees on PAYE in the North East was 5% higher in December 2021 than December 2020, and there’s been an upward trend in those numbers since May last year.
That’s good news for longer term, stable employment and shows businesses getting back into the swing of bringing in payrolled employees after the understandable slowdown of the months following the first lockdown.
So, we’re creating jobs and getting people into work but not as fast as we need to be.
Official numbers show the employment rate falling, unemployment rising and crucially, economic inactivity is increasing too – particularly showing an increase in long term ill-health and into retirement.
That increase in economic inactivity is happening across the country, but in the North East it counts for one in every four working age people, whereas nationally it’s one in every five.
Being out of sync with the national picture is a problem.
Prime Minister’s Questions last week was mostly about what constitutes a work party (a quagmire I won’t wade into), but there was also time for Blaydon MP Liz Twist to ask about unemployment, to which the Prime Minister replied that unemployment was falling to near record lows.
This is one of those things that’s both true and not.
Nationally, sure, the unemployment rate is 4.1% and falling, but in the North East it’s 5.7% and rising.
That’s the reality, and dismissing it – or failing to notice it – does nothing to change the situation.
If our situation is different, shouldn’t the action taken here be different?
Each and every person lost out of the workforce carries with them skills and experience no longer available to businesses.
That’s a challenge and an opportunity that it’s worth being realistic about.