Some facts from South Yorkshire

This is fucked up reading.. You might Need to cry Screem Thump a wall etc.. This is going to form part of a growing project for Sheffield Social Forum and was compiled/researched by Brian Garvey  b.garvey@sheffield.ac.uk There are some audio interviews we have also done over the last few weeks with The Youth (ie drugs and other shit) I hope to have this info on line and transcribed in the next 2 weeks..For Now Mozaz

Economy

South Yorkshire (SY) has the second lowest GDP growth
(1.2% per year) of the 65 counties in UK for 1996-2010
(Cambridge Econometrics).

Within South Yorkshire the slowest growth forecasted
is in Sheffield the largest economy of the county.

All production sectors are predicted to suffer further
job losses (Cambridge Econometrics).

In terms of attraction to investors the region accounts
for the lowest percentage of foreign investment in the
country (20.7% compared to national average of 32.8%).

The region of Yorkshire and Humberside has the fifth
lowest level of GDP per head and disposable income for
all 12 regions in UK.

IN SY production between 1996 and 2006 will also fall
in energy and manufacturing, which constitute a loss of
£81 million (from mine closure and redundancies) and
metals (down £118 million).

New clusters of IT and electronics firms have been
created. The service sector is growing representing
63% of GDP and 72% of employment - not necessarily
for the long term unemployed.

Output by 2006 will be 2/3 the national rate - if SYs
economic activity rates matched the national average,
there would be at least another 30,000 people active.

The region has 68,000 less jobs than it should have, and
incomes are 87% of the national average.

GDP fell every year against the national EU average
between 1979 and 1995.


Brief history of decline
UK was one of the few European states not to provide
subsidies to heavy industry at times of low market
activity, and huge job losses followed.

In 1971 coal and steel provided employment for 121,000
people (1/4 the workforce). Successive steel plants
closed with 3-4,000 jobs lost at a time.

The coal closure programme guaranteed that, by 1997,
187,000 jobs were lost (60% of all industry). 95,000
service jobs were taken up (by no means by the same
people) and workforce, therefore, shrank by 92,000
employees 1/5 of all jobs.

Conditions for working people

90% of workforce is employable. Since the industrial
closures, the economy is supporting insecure and low paid
jobs, and employment in sectors classed vulnerable is
about 121, 000 people, over ¼ of total number of people
employed.

The severe decline of above 70% in both GDP and
employment for heavy industry will affect a further
2,900 mining jobs and 1,500 jobs from the chemical
industry.

Gross Average Hourly earnings for full time work for Y
and H are the second lowest regional level in UK.

Jobless growth

There is an assumption that an increase in GDP = an
increase in employment; however, in all production
industries the UK will experience both an increase in
GDP and a fall in employment.

In SY a 15% increase in GDP coincides with a 2% fall in
employment.

Unemployment

SY has 48,000 people unemployed, a rate of 8.1%.

Unemployment is to rise by 2.2% - another 9,400 people
out of work by 2006.

Self-employment will be down 7.3% - 4,200 less working
people.

The rate of redundancy in SY is the second highest in
the UK at 11 per thousand employees - almost 1/3 of
employed and over half the unemployed have experienced
redundancy at least once in 7 years.

By 2006 Male employment will have fallen by 17,000.
Female jobs are to rise by 8,000.

Young women in SY are 3 times more likely to be
employed than men, yet in 1998 hourly earnings for
females in full time non-manual work in SY were 63% of
those for males.

Yorkshire and Humber has the 5th lowest female
Economic Activity rates of UK regions.

Education, exclusion and employability
Of 119,000 young people aged 13-19 in SY, 15% are not
in any form of education, training or employment.

12% 16-18 year are olds not engaged in any formal
education, training or employment.

10% of 16+ dont take up further learning.

Level 4 attainment figures for 11 year olds in Sheffield
rank 124th out of 149 Local Education Authorities
nationally.

264 young people have been permanently excluded from
secondary schools over the past 3 years and 4640 have
faced temporary exclusions (LEA briefing, 2003).

16 year olds in Sheffield have a 16.5% less chance of
attaining 5 GCSE grade C or above than the national
average.

Between 1993 and 1998 participation by 16-19 year
olds in full time education has grown at less than half the
national growth rate.

More than 1 in 5 people in SY have no qualifications.

The percentage of 19 year olds achieving a qualification
at NVQ level 2 or an equivalent is the 4th lowest across
UK regions.

14.9% of the workforce,
10% of 16-24 year olds and
15.8% of over 25s have no qualifications

These figures mask the significant disparity between
different schools and the strong correlation between
areas of deprivation and low attainment rates.

Deprivation and migration
In 1991 SY districts were among the worst 10-16% in
terms of deprivation in UK.

Poverty in the sub region is now worse in relation to
other areas in England and 1998 figures showed SY to
be in the worst 7-14% in the country.

All four SY districts are among the 50 most deprived in
the country.

1,304,000 people live in here in SY. 15,500 people have
left in the space of 4 years (93-97) and more are
moving.

Predictions are that by 2011 another 13,000 will have
left and the population will be 1,292,000.

In Sheffield 16,700 people left between 1981 and 1998.