Buckinghamshire’s claimant count, September 2017

By Buckinghamshire Business First
18 October, 2017

Buckinghamshire’s claimant count fell for a fourth successive month in September to stand at 2,910, the lowest level since January.

The number of out of work residents claiming either Job Seekers’ Allowance or Universal Credit now account for 0.9 per cent of Buckinghamshire’s working age residents, the 3rd lowest rate among the 38 Local Enterprise Partnerships, ranking 6th lowest among the 27 county council areas. Over the last year Buckinghamshire’s claimant count has risen by 8.8 per cent, more than double the national and regional rises of 3.3 and 4.2 per cent respectively.

Table 1: Claimant Count, September 2017

Source: DWP, 2017

Over the last year, the claimant count for women has risen by 12.1 per cent, almost twice the rate of growth for male claimants. Women now make up 39.7 per cent of all claimants, up from 38.5 per cent in the previous year. Although the number of claimants aged 18-24 rose by ten in September, the total has fallen by 15 over the last year, so that 18-24 year olds now make up only 16.4 per cent of all Buckinghamshire’s claimants, having accounted for 24.8 per cent in September 2013. Claimants aged 25-49 fell by 45 in September but remain 100 higher than a year ago. Despite this, 25-49 year olds now account for only 51.9 per cent of all claimants, a new low.

There were 4,721 advertised job openings in Buckinghamshire in September, six (0.1 per cent) more than in August but 1,197 (20.6 per cent) fewer than in September 2016. At the national level, vacancies fell by 2.6 per cent over the last year. At 1.6, Buckinghamshire’s vacancies per claimant remains well above the national rate of 1.1.

The most commonly advertised roles in September were programmers and software development professionals (217 job openings), other administrative occupations (142), nurses (135), business sales executives (110), book-keepers, payroll managers and wages clerks (104), and IT user support technicians (102). Over the last year the most sought specialised skills have been customer service (5,188 openings), Microsoft Excel (5,042), business management (3,748), Microsoft Office (3,374), project management (3,070), and sales (2,881). The most sought baseline skills have been communication skills (15,145), ahead of organisational skills (8,603), planning (4,754), team work and collaborative working (4,453), and being detail orientated (4,430).