Economy
Improving prosperity is vital as it underpins and impacts on so many areas of people’s lives, including their general health and wellbeing.
Supporting business enterprise and innovation is key to the future prosperity of the local area, while businesses can also play a key role in terms of health, well-being and resilience.
To be able to do this, it is important to have an in-depth understanding of the local economy and the types of businesses that are located in the area so that interventions can be targeted to lead to maximum economic growth and increased prosperity.
This section considers priority areas including the economic structure of the local economy, productivity, and the local workforce.
Businesses and employers
In order to support our key population outcome of enabling our residents to access more and better jobs, we need to develop a good understanding of what employment options there are in Staffordshire and how this is changing. To achieve this, it is important to try and build up a picture of what employment options exist locally by looking at which industries are in growth or decline, and which are most resilient, so that learning opportunities are providing residents with a good pathway towards employment.
Gross Value Added
Gross Value Added (GVA) is a measure of output in terms of the increase in the value of the economy through the production of goods and services. GVA is a component of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and is the preferred method used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to measure national economic performance and can be used locally to assess the overall economic wellbeing of an area.
GVA + taxes on products - subsidies on products = GDP
If GDP has increased over the previous three months, the economy is growing, if it has reduced it is contracting. Two consecutive three month periods of contraction means an economy is in recession.
Employment
The Strategy Team produces a monthly briefing looking at the latest unemployment data and reports on how the rate has changed in the previous month, quarter and year. This information can be found on our employment page.