Buckinghamshire’s claimant count, March 2019

By Buckinghamshire Business First
24 April, 2019

Buckinghamshire’s claimant count increased for a fifth successive month in March, rising 245 to stand at 3,925, the highest level since April 2014.

The claimant count has now risen by more than a third (34.9 per cent, 1,015 claimants) in the last six months. At the national level, the claimant count rose for a ninth successive month in March, although rising only 18.8 per cent since October.

At 1.2 per cent of working age residents, Buckinghamshire has the 3rd lowest claimant count rate among the 26 county council areas, ranking 2nd among the 38 Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). Claimant count rates range from 1.0 per cent in Chiltern and South Bucks to 1.6 per cent in Wycombe. There are four wards in Buckinghamshire where the claimant count rate is above the national level; three in High Wycombe and one in Chesham (see the map at the end).

Table 1: Claimant Count, March 2019

Source: DWP, 2019

There were 4,789 advertised job openings in Buckinghamshire in March, the lowest monthly total since records began in January 2017, 11.5 per cent (620 openings) fewer than in February and 35.2 per cent (2,607) fewer than in March 2018. The most commonly sought occupations over the last year have been other sales occupations (2,723 openings), ahead of other administrative occupations (2,278), other customer service occupations (2,171), programmers and software development professionals (1,931), nurses (1,767), other managers and proprietors in other service activities (1,603), and marketing and sales directors (1,550).

Over the last year, the public sector has been the industry with the most advertised openings, accounting for more than a third of openings where both industry and occupation are known. Jobs for professionals working in the public sector (6,413 openings) were the most commonly advertised openings in Buckinghamshire in the year to March 2019 ahead of caring, leisure and other service roles also in the public sector (2,405), professionals and associate professionals in professional and other private services (2,116 and 1,857 respectively), and professionals and associate professionals in manufacturing (1,462 and 1,257). The full results are presented in Chart 7.

Over the last year, the specialised skills most sought by recruiters in Buckinghamshire have been customer service, specified in 7,814 job openings, or 18.3 per cent of the total, ahead of team work/collaboration (6,474, 15.2), and sales (5,073, 11.9). The most commonly sought baseline skills were communication skills (15,606, 36.6), organisational skills (7,159, 16.8), and Microsoft Excel (5,868, 13.8).