80 percent of new private sector jobs are created in London, report says

Close to 80% of national private sector jobs were created in the Greater London Area between 2010 and 2012, a report by leading urban economic Think Tank, Centre for Cities, has revealed.

The Cities Outlook 2014 report uses figures obtained from internal migration data supplied by the Office for National Statistics and clearly underlines the larger than expected extent to which jobs creation and movement of people is heavily skewed towards London. In fact, the report suggests that of the 236,000 people who were in work in the three months to July 2012, 90,000 were in London.

The study also found that every UK city is now suffering an actual talent drain, with one-third of all 22 to 30 year-olds now leaving their place of birth or education to move to London and pursue a career in the city.

In contrast to London, the rest of the UK’s largest cities have seen significant job losses in both private and public sectors. Among those cities faring worst, Bradford lost nearly 7,000 jobs, Sheffield showed a net loss of 5,000 posts, Doncaster 4,000 and Hull 1,000. Although Leeds saw 4,200 private sector jobs created, it lost nearly 5,000 in the public sector.

On the other hand, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Liverpool have all created significant numbers of private sector jobs which have helped to offset the impact of public sector job cuts.

Alexandra Jones, Chief Executive of Centre for Cities said: “Cities Outlook 2014 shows that that the gap between London and other UK cities is widening, but that other cities are making progress.

“To enable cities to respond to their particular strengths and weaknesses the Government should build on City Deals and devolve more funding and powers to UK cities – London and others – so they can generate more of their own income and play to their different strengths. This will help ensure this is a sustainable, job-rich recovery across the country.”