Warrington top of the league for employment

A NEW “Centre for Cities” report shows Warrington is top of the league across the whole UK for employment.
The annual health check of UK cities, Cities Outlook 2015, published today (Monday) establishes that Warrington is currently number one for employment and continues to demonstrate a strong performance amongst cities within the North West.
The document is the authoritative economic index of the 64 largest cities and towns in the UK. The findings reinforce the importance of skills, good transport and broadband connections and a good industry base to economically successful cities.
The report states that the strongest performance among cities in North West is seen among its smaller cities, with Warrington in particular standing out, with a business stock change of 29 per cent, over twice the average for UK cities, and a six per cent growth in jobs despite the recession.
The report, now in its eighth year, looks at and compares 64 UK cities.
Warrington is classified as a ‘city’ in the report by population, which is documented within the report of having grown by seven per cent on last year.
The report also states that North West cities have had a varied performance with regards to business growth however Warrington has performed very strongly over the last ten years.
Warrington has a steady presence in the top twenty for all measured criteria. It was ranked as follows:
• 1st out of 64 cities for the highest percentage of employment per population with 79.8% of its population in employment. N.B Warrington has also had an increase in population of 0.7% on last year
• 2nd in terms its population enjoying employment with “Other Services”
• 4th in terms of private to public sector ratio. Suggesting that the jobs market within Warrington is not solely reliant on public sector employment but has a healthy range of private sector employers
• 5th and 13th highest in terms of academic skills with Warrington ranked as 5th for top GCSE results including Maths and English and 13th for high level qualifications
• 12th in terms of business stock and an increase of change of 29 per cent
Warrington is not currently listed in the top ten table for having maximum broadband. However, the Connecting Cheshire high speed broadband programme currently being rolled out will significantly change this in future years and will ensure Warrington has 96% access to high-speed fibre optic broadband to all premises by the end of 2015, 12 months ahead of schedule.
Terry O’Neill, Leader of Warrington Borough Council, (Pictured) said, “Today’s report shows that Warrington continues to lead the North West region and indeed the rest of the UK, most notably this time in terms of employment. Ensuring the people of Warrington are able to get jobs is a key objective of this local authority.
We are pleased that once again Warrington continues to set the pace for the North West region and in certain areas outperforms most of the UK.”