- By Buckinghamshire Business First
- 15 November, 2017
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Buckinghamshire’s claimant count rose by 35 in October, to stand at 2,935, 8.3 per cent higher than a year ago.
Despite this rise, at 0.9 per cent of working age residents, it remains less than half the national level, ranking 3rd lowest among the 38 Local Enterprise Partnerships and 6th lowest among the 27 county council areas. The claimant count continues to rise faster in Buckinghamshire than across the country as a whole.
Table 1: Claimant Count, October 2017
Source: DWP, 2017
There are now seven wards in Buckinghamshire where the claimant count rate is above the national rate, five in High Wycombe and one each in both Aylesbury and Chesham. Across Buckinghamshire, the claimant count rate in rural areas is half the urban rate.
While the number of female claimants remained unchanged in October at 1,145, there was change by age, with the number of female claimants aged 16-24 rising by 10, with falls recorded in the 25-49 and 50+ cohorts. Among men, the number of claimants aged over 50 was unchanged, with rises for those aged 16-24 and 25 to 49, taking the share of all claimants that are men back up to 61.0 per cent.
There were 5,322 advertised job openings in Buckinghamshire in October, 601 (12.7 per cent) more than in September, but 180 (3.3 per cent) fewer than in October 2016. At the national level, job openings have risen by 19.4 per cent over the last year. At 1.8, Buckinghamshire’s vacancies per claimant remains well above the national rate of 1.2.
The most commonly advertised roles in October were programmers and software development professionals (193 job openings), nurses (173), other administrative occupations (144), IT user support technicians (129), managers and proprietors in other sectors (eg betting shop manager, library manager, production (entertainment) manager, 103), child minders and business sales executives (both 98). Over the last year the most sought specialised skills have been customer service (6,121 openings), Microsoft Excel (5,636), business management (3,799), Microsoft Office (3,763), project management (3,153), and sales (3,059). The most sought baseline skills have been communication skills (16,254), ahead of organisational skills (9,181), being detail orientated (5,062), planning (4,947), and team work and collaborative working (4,696).
Chart 1: Buckinghamshire’s claimant count over time, to October 2017
Source: DWP, 2017
Table 2: Claimant count by age group, October 2017
Source: DWP, 2017
Chart 2: Aylesbury Vale’s claimant count over time, to October 2017
Source: DWP, 2017
Chart 3: Chiltern’s claimant count over time, to October 2017
Source: DWP, 2017
Chart 4: South Bucks’ claimant count over time, to October 2017
Source: DWP, 2017
Chart 5: Wycombe’s claimant count over time, to September 2017
Source: DWP, 2017
Table 3: Claimant count by sought occupation (JSA only), October 2017
Source: DWP, 2017
Chart 6: Year on year change in claimants by place
Source: DWP, 2017