Anticipated cuts in public sector jobs will make it difficult for the West Midlands to maintain the latest fall in unemployment figures announced today, said business leaders.

Katie Teasdale, head of policy at Birmingham and Solihull Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCI), said: "Given the national trend which shows a rise to a 16-year high of 2.5 million and the severity with which our region has been affected by the recession, it is pleasing to see that unemployment fell by 6,000 to 253,000 or 9.5% of the working population between December and February.

"This is testament to the hard work of multiple public agencies as well as employers who have fought to avoid redundancies and keep their staff despite at times, appalling business conditions. 

"Our Quarterly Economic Survey for Quarter 1 reinforced that businesses are still implementing measures like reduced hours and part-time working to retain staff. 

"It will be extremely difficult for the West Midlands to maintain this trend in the coming months. Partly because rising unemployment as a lagging factor tends to accompany the first shoots of recoveries, but more seriously because of the anticipated cuts in public sector employment post-election. 

"To combat this, we are continuing to urge all parties to commit to a complete reversal of April 2011's NI rise and to focus upon creating the business environment which will allow our members to create jobs."