Local and Regional Employment Overview
Employment Overview Within the Region (Leeds City Region)
- Over 200,000 employed – retail, wholesale and motor vehicle
- Over 100,000 employed – business services; education; health and social care; manufacturing
- Between 70,000 and 90,000 employed – hospitality, hotels, cafes and restaurants; professional, science and technical services; transport and logistics
- Between 40,000 and 65,000 employed – arts, recreation and entertainment; construction; finance and insurance; ICT; local and central government
Key Information
- Sectors of most importance in the region include: advanced manufacturing - important to the UK economy too; finance and professional services; health* and life sciences - the former is a large employer; low carbon and environmental industries; digital and creative - small sector but growing fast; food and drink manufacture and production including biosciences.
- Sectors with some of the most skill shortages in the region include: construction, digital, and engineering and manufacturing.
- Soft skills are very important to employers and are in short supply in many sectors.
- Just 30% of people working in corporate management are women.
- 54% of people working in higher skilled jobs are men.
- Since 2004, there were 100,000 new high skilled jobs created - they were the main source of new employment. Growth in these jobs has levelled off in more recent years.
- Over the same period, there were 13,000 new jobs in service occupations, such as care, sales and customer service.
- It’s expected by 2027/8, there will be an average of 4% growth in jobs but high skilled occupations will grow at an average rate of 12%.
- Overall new job growth over the next 10 years will be 60,000. Due to the need to replace people leaving or retiring, there are expected to be 300,000 jobs available in total, 220,000 are expected to be high skilled jobs.
- By 2024, the number of jobs in the Leeds City Region is expected to grow by 300,000. Around 220,000 of these will be in ‘high level’ jobs.
Source: Leeds City Region labour market information report 2017/2018, updated February 2018
The Future
In West Yorkshire*, including in Calderdale and Kirklees, there is expected to be a gap of over 15% in adult nursing, learning disability nursing, district nursing, health visiting, podiatry/chiropody, therapeutic radiography and social care nurses; there is also a gap of more than 10% in paediatric nursing, mental health nursing, school nurses, physiotherapy. Other health and social care professions are facing a shortage. Increasingly, social care and health care services are merging.
*Source: West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership Workforce Strategy April 2018