Birmingham’s economy has shifted from manufacturing to low-paid services – and now even those jobs are under pressure. With high youth unemployment and economic inactivity, experts warn the city risks a hollowed-out future unless skills, investment, and opportunity are shared more widely.
00:00The big question is what kind of Birmingham our children will inherit, a city with thriving well-paid careers in tech, engineering and science, or one where the jobs left are insecure, low-paid and shrinking.
00:13Manufacturing here has collapsed from around 40% of jobs to less than 10%, with much of what replaced it offering lower wages and less security.
00:22I've been speaking to Dr. Steve McCabe, an economic expert, who studied Birmingham's industrial and employment trends for decades to understand how deep the risks run.
00:34So retailing no longer has the secure jobs it once did, a lot of pop-up shops.
00:41What you also see in Birmingham City Centre is a lot of people riding around on mobile bikes, which of course put bikes off mobile by nature, but delivering food.
00:50Now these are all sort of low-paid, insecure jobs, which they don't provide, if you like, a very good future for those involved.
01:00It's a cyclical thing, and of course the question is, will it get any better? I don't think so.
01:05Birmingham's economic inactivity is among the highest in the country.
01:09Around 30% of working age adults aren't in work or looking for it.
01:13Youth unemployment often sits between 15% and 20%, meaning a generation is missing out on career starts and income at the very time they should be building their futures.
01:23I asked Dr. McCabe how much of this comes down to the city's skills gap, and whether we're equipping people for the jobs Birmingham needs to grow.
01:32Most particularly, I think what's going to happen is that maybe the knowledge-based jobs may disappear or the demand for them will decline.
01:40But the jobs where people are required to use their hands on thinking most particularly about construction, that may increase.
01:47Because of course there's no doubt we do need to revitalise the city and we need to rebuild.
01:52And indeed, perhaps we need to look at higher education, of which I used to be involved.
01:56Do we need the number of graduates that we're producing who don't go into graduate-level employment?
02:02City leaders point to HS2, new office towers and global events as proof Birmingham is on the up.
02:08But for many areas, the reality is high poverty, boarded-up shops and jobs that barely cover the bills.
02:14Even the service sector is straining, with two Wetherspoons pubs closing recently.
02:19I wanted to know whether the gloss versus ground reality gap is getting wider, and what's driving the divide between the city centre and the outer districts.
02:29You can see the high street is in decline, and of course it's now been concentrated into smaller and smaller areas.
02:36And the difficulty is that I don't think there are enough coffee shops that are going to open to fill those spaces.
02:41And of course, once you get into that sort of decline, it's like a vortex, it sucks everything down, and of course it undermines confidence, which of course is crucial.
02:50And indeed, the mood music from business and commerce is that they're not very confident about the short to medium term.
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