The West Midlands is taking people off the dole queue faster than anywhere else in the country as signs of a resurgence in the UK’s manufacturing heartland ripple across the region.

Booming exports and firms creating jobs for young people were credited with bringing about the biggest drop in worklessness the region has seen in nearly 15 years.

Adding to the sense of upturn, new tourism figures show Birmingham had a record number of visitors last year, bucking a downward trend in visitors to the UK as a whole.

On the jobs front, success at Jaguar Land Rover has been passed down the region’s supply chain, and also the services and professional sectors are feeling buoyant on the back of the upturn across the wider manufacturing sector.

According to ONS statistics, 28,000 less people were out of work over the three months to April, knocking one per cent off the region’s jobless rate to bring it down to 8.8 per cent .

Although the West Midlands still has higher than average rates of unemployment, last quarter’s drop was the best performance of all the regions, eclipsing the UK-wide drop of 0.3 per cent.

And the region also bucked a national trend of rising claimant counts with a slight decrease in the number of people drawing Jobseeker’s Allowance to 161,700 in May.

The numbers are the surest sign yet that the region is shaking off the effects of the global recession which spelled the end to firms like LDV and brought many others to the brink of collapse.

Commentators pointed to the success of the industrial sector as the keystone for the region’s employment market as it supports job creation in a range of other sectors that are reliant on its good health.

The regional director of manufacturers’ organisation EEF Richard Halstead said: “It’s a manufacturing-led recovery and now we’re starting to see the benefit in other sectors such as legal and professional services.

“In automotive, obviously Jaguar Land Rover is doing well and that benefits the whole supply chain and the impact ripples down.

“But there’s strong demand in aerospace too and a lot of our members are seeing significant increases in demand. Exports are playing a big role.

“A lot of it is driven by quality products and quality service and delivery but also obviously by exchange rates.”

But he added: “The only sector where demand is flaky is construction.”

Other business leaders welcomed the reduction in unemployment.

Christine Braddock, president of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, said: “These figures, although still extremely challenging, are greatly encouraging.

“The next quarterly economic survey from the Chamber is expected to suggest that both the manufacturing and service sectors are doing well in the export market.

“This clearly demonstrates that companies which are prepared to look for new markets and diversify will come through these difficult times.”

JLR has played a central role in supporting jobs in the region, thanks to a huge rise in sales in China and other emerging markets, the success of new models such as the Jaguar XJ and favourable foreign exchange rates.

Last week the Birmingham Post revealed that the car giant had selected Wolverhampton to base its new 800,000 sq ft engine plant – the biggest single boost for West Midland manufacturing since BMW launched its engine plant at Hams Hall more than a decade ago.

It is expected the new plant will create about 600 jobs and up to 400 more in the supply chain.

Although JLR is yet to officially confirm the site of the new plant, even without the investment the car maker is massively increasing its headcount in the region ahead of a drive to bring out new models.

A JLR spokeswoman said: “This year we are looking to recruit 1,000 engineers and a significant number of staff to go into other functions such as finance and HR.

“We have publicly stated that we are looking at 40 significant product actions in the next five years – that could be a new model, a new derivative of a model or a new engine.

“That’s an ambitious plan for us and clearly we need to ensure we have the engineers and people within finance, purchasing and product development to support those ambitious plans to grow.”

The official labour market statistics come on the back of a raft of other encouraging data singling out the West Midlands as a hotspot for job creation.