Buckinghamshire’s claimant count, May 2018

By Buckinghamshire Business First
13 June, 2018

Buckinghamshire’s claimant count fell for a second successive month in May to stand at 3,075, or 0.9 per cent of working age residents, the 3rd lowest level among the 27 county council areas and 2nd lowest among the 38 Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs).

Over the last year, the county’s claimant count has risen by 2.0 per cent, the third lowest rise recorded among both the 27 county council areas and 38 LEPs, and well below the 11.4 per cent rise recorded across the country.

Table 1: Claimant Count, May 2018

Source: DWP, 2018

There were 5,219 advertised job openings in Buckinghamshire in May, 19.3 per cent fewer (1,243 openings) than in May 2017 and 25.1 per cent (1,743) fewer than were posted in March 2018. May’s total was the lowest since September 2017. There are now 1.7 openings per claimant in Buckinghamshire, compared to 0.7 across Great Britain.

Sales occupations were the largest component of the fall, with openings falling by almost a quarter (24.8 per cent), or 2,033 in the year ending May, compared to the previous year. While professional occupations saw the largest increase in job openings, rising 1,140, the highest rate of growth was in openings for process, plant and machinery operatives, which saw a 25.4 per cent rise (400 openings) to stand at 1,984 (see chart 6).

The most commonly advertised roles in May were sales related occupations including retail sales representatives, with 192 openings, ahead of the 170 openings for both primary and nursery teaching professionals and other administrative occupations (including administration assistants and clerks). The next most commonly advertised roles were managers and proprietors in other services (e.g. betting shop managers or production managers in entertainment (139), programmers and software development professionals (137), and nurses (132).

In the last year the most sought baseline skills have been communication skills (specified in 14,581 job advertisements), ahead of organisational skills (6,480), planning (5,200) and Microsoft Excel (5,046). The most sought specialised skills were customer service (6,949), teamwork and collaboration (6,010), and sales (5,400).