The Observatory’s Skills Team are working on an assessment of skills and labour market issues in the rural areas of the West Midlands on behalf of the Regional Skills Partnership and the Rural Affairs Forum.
While we expect to publish in April 2009, we can report now on emerging findings relating to the impact of the recession.
Rural areas of the West Midlands have out-performed the rest of the region in recent years in terms of business growth, new business formation and employment growth.
However, there remains a significant dependence on lower value added sectors and industries such as agriculture, manufacturing industries such as food and drink, construction, hotels and catering, and transport.
Filed under: Data, Economy & Labour Force, Herefordshire, Regional Data and Intelligence Network, Shropshire, Skills, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands, West Midlands Regional Observatory, Worcestershire | Tagged: Commission for Rural Communities, CRC, recession, rural economy, West Midlands | Leave a comment »