Buckinghamshire’s claimant count, June 2017

Despite falling by 45 in June, the number of out of work Buckinghamshire residents claiming either Job Seekers’ Allowance or Universal Credit has risen by 14.5 per cent (375 claimants) in the last year.

Buckinghamshire’s claimant count has risen faster than the national rate for each of the last nine months, as shown in chart 5 at the end of this bulletin.  Buckinghamshire’s increase in claimant count is close to three times higher than the national rate of 5.1 per cent and is the 7th highest of the 38 Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), ranking 10th among England’s 27 county council areas.

Wycombe has seen the smallest increase over the year by district, rising 9.9 per cent, compared to 15.5 per cent in Chiltern, 18.3 in Aylesbury Vale and 22.0 in South Bucks.  All five Parliamentary constituencies have seen rises in claimant count, with Aylesbury seeing the slowest rise at 8.0 per cent, followed by Wycombe at 11.7 per cent.

June’s fall in claimant count took the total to 2,970 or 0.9 per cent of working age residents.  This is the 3rd lowest rate among LEPs, ranking 6th lowest among county council areas.

Table 1: Claimant Count, June 2017

Source: DWP, 2017

There were 5,112 advertised job openings in Buckinghamshire in June, 979 (16.1 per cent) fewer than in May and 170 (3.2 per cent) fewer than in June 2016.  Over the last year the number of job openings has fallen in all occupational groups with the exception of professionals.  The largest falls have been recorded in administrative occupations, down 8.4 per cent or 45 openings, ahead of sales occupations (down 6.4, 23) and associate professionals (down 5.0, 59).

The most commonly advertised roles in June were programmers and software development professionals (286), other administrative occupations (151), business sales executives (140), nurses (138), and IT user support technicians (137).  Over the last year the most sought specialised skills have been customer service (5,320 openings), Microsoft Excel (5,171), business management (3,706), Microsoft Office (3,430), project management (3,074), and sales (3,039).  The most sought baseline skills have been communication skills (15,159), ahead of organisational skills (9,177), planning (4,872), being detail orientated (4,523), and team work and collaborative working (4,420).

Chart 1: Buckinghamshire’s claimant count over time, to June 2017

Source: DWP, 2017

Table 2: Claimant count by sought occupation (JSA only), June 2017

Source: DWP, 2017

Chart 2: Aylesbury Vale’s claimant count over time, to June 2017

Source: DWP, 2017

Chart 3: Chiltern’s claimant count over time, to June 2017

Source: DWP, 2017

Chart 4: South Bucks’ claimant count over time, to June 2017

Source: DWP, 2017

Chart 5: Wycombe’s claimant count over time, to June 2017

Source: DWP, 2017

Table 3: Claimant count by age group, June 2017

Source: DWP, 2017

Chart 6: Year on year change in claimant count by month (%)

Source: DWP, 2017


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