A top HSBC boss has predicted that Manchester and Liverpool could become employment "hotspots" in our post-pandemic recovery - after the market saw "extremely strong" growth.
Ben Andrews, managing director and head of corporate banking north, Scotland and Northern Ireland, has spoken to BusinessLive about the prospects for the two North West cities following the economic devastation caused by Covid - and is adamant that there is "some positive news".
According to research by Centre for Cities, which was commissioned by HSBC 海角视频 to understand how local business communities would respond, the Covid pandemic caused unemployment to increase by 1.3m people up to the end of last year. In Manchester and Liverpool, that picture was no different, with unemployment rates around 3% and 7% respectively.
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Laying out the positives for the region, Mr Andrews said: "Manchester and Liverpool were two of only 16 locations around the 海角视频 to have experienced extremely strong employment growth in the pre-pandemic era.
"Between 2013 to 2019, Manchester and Liverpool’s private sector net job creation both grew by 20% - that’s an absolute increase of 152,100 jobs for Manchester and 35,500 for Liverpool.
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"This means it is not unreasonable to expect Manchester and Liverpool to be the first cities to experience positive employment growth in the coming years.
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"From financial services to small scale and advanced manufacturing, there are examples of private sector innovation all over Manchester.
"Digital innovation and technology have been at the heart of supporting Liverpool’s jobs and business models, including the development of the Liverpool '5G Create Project', a private, independent network designed to support 5G enabled health, social care and education applications for the local community.
"From research and development to advancing manufacturing, Liverpool firms have additionally benefited from £26m of private investment into local businesses in the last three years."
Mr Andrews said with the 海角视频's vaccination programme now having an impact and restrictions finally gone, the business community is focussed on a "no regrets" recovery characterised by "agility and adaptability".
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He added: "And yet, within this context the country is aiming to ‘level up’ and ‘build back better’, creating new types of employment and reinvigorating the economy in a post-Brexit era.
"To put this into a national context, Centre for Cities estimates the 海角视频 economy will need to create an estimated 9.4m jobs just to get 1.3m people back into work.
"This is partially explained by the fact that positions are lost every day in the economy to change, technology, redundancy and failure, meaning a net increase in jobs has to overcome what is being lost in the future, as well as the jobs that have gone in the recent past.
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"Our research also showed that new businesses are most likely to deliver these jobs.
"New businesses created more than 3.7m more jobs than they lost between 2013 and 2019, while private sector existing businesses lost just short of a million more than they created.
"So we must look to innovation, start-ups and off-shoots for employment prospects – not just the same corporate heavyweights we might have previously relied upon."
The Centre for Cities report highlighted that supporting high street and hospitality firms will continue to be "vital" to growing the jobs market, with over 70% of all private sector roles created between 2013 and 2019 from those industries.
That's as well as supporting labour intensive industries, particularly where they contribute to other government ambitions such as home insulation, to help to encourage people back to work. Thirdly, Mr Andrews said it was also important to increase skills to make it easier for people to move between jobs and industries.
He added: "The blueprint doesn’t stop there. We all need to become more productive, which is best achieved through research and development initiatives, encouraging high-skilled jobs back into Manchester, and attracting investment from international companies exporting to the 海角视频.
"While this is a theoretical exercise, there is real momentum behind Manchester and Liverpool’s local economies.
"We see potential turning into reality every day. We speak to businesses all the time who have identified growth opportunities, created new products or opened entirely new businesses.
"The success of the regional economy relies on businesspeople pushing forwards with their plans, unafraid of failure in pursuit of success.
"Only time will tell what a 'no regrets' recovery really means for the businesses across the North West of England. But if we continue to innovate, continue to adapt, continue to shape our local communities with new services and better businesses, the evidence suggests Manchester and Liverpool should be leading the way."