Sunderland is hardest city in UK to find work, employment website finds

Adzuna.co.uk compared the latest unemployment figures with the number of vacancies in its database and found the number of people chasing each advertised job in the city had more than doubled in six months.

The claim comes as new figures show the number of people claiming out-of-work benefits in Sunderland jumped by almost two-thirds in the first two months of the coronavirus lockdown.

The latest figures show there were 14,495 people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance or unemployment Universal Credit in the city in May, a rise of 1,340 on April and up by 5,595 – almost 63 per cent – on March, when the lockdown began.

The job search site says competition for jobs has reached an eight-year high, with the latest data showing the sharpest rise in unemployment since the data started being collected in 1992

The unemployment figures reveal a concerning disparity between regions, with nine out of 10 of the worst-affected cities located in the north of England and says the number of jobseekers competing for each vacancy in Sunderland rose by 120% in six months.

Bradford is the second hardest city to find work, with Salford, Hull, and Wirral rounding out the top five most difficult areas to find a job

The cest cities to find a job were Cambridge, Manchester, Oxford, Winchester and Exeter, with vacancies still outnumbering the number of jobseekers. Cambridge is currently the best place to find a job with 7.3 jobs per jobseeker across the city.

Adzuna co-founder Andrew Hunter said: “Northern cities are disproportionately impacted by job losses. Our data shows lower-income workers have been hit the hardest by job losses and we need to ensure more is done to provide support.

“The situation is likely to get worse in the coming months as the government’s Job Retention Scheme winds up over the summer. There is a real risk unemployment could double again by the end of the year.”

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