Salford unemployment balloons – despite MediaCityUK
The opening of MediaCityUK was heralded as a jobs bonanza for the economically struggling city of Salford but far from eating away at the dole queues the development seems to have fed them, with unemployment jumping by 6%.
This is over ten times higher than the national average with the UK as a whole recording a 0.6% drop in Job Seekers Allowance.
Adding to the pall of gloom Salford also has the dubious honour of experiencing the sharpest annual rise in youth unemployment in Greater Manchester (+2.4%), the second highest rise in long-term unemployment (+32%) and second highest rise in female unemployment (+13%).
The dire stats are doubly troubling as they follow an unprecedented splurge of money and regeneration into the city over the past decade.