Claimant counts and jobs

The number of out of work Buckinghamshire residents claiming either Job Seekers’ Allowance or Universal Credit fell by 60 in June to 2,495. At 0.8 per cent of working age residents, Buckinghamshire has the 3rd lowest claimant count rate of the 39 Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), ranking 6th among the 27 county council areas.

• Over the last year Buckinghamshire’s claimant count has fallen by 8.1 per cent, more than double the national rate of fall and further ahead of the 2.9 per cent fall seen across the South East region.
• The annual fall in the number of claimants was faster among women than men for the first time in two years, falling 8.9 and 7.9 per cent respectively.
• There were 5,541 advertised job openings in Buckinghamshire in June, a slight increase on May but well up on the 4,989 recorded in June 2015. Vacancies for programmers and software development professionals and nurses were most common, both with 240 openings.

See the full data on claimant counts and job openings here >

Other data released this month include:

Population: Buckinghamshire’s population rose 6,478 in 2015, to reach 528,400. At 1.2 per cent, Buckinghamshire had the strongest annual growth of any county council area, while the 2.2 per cent rise in Aylesbury Vale was the 11th highest of any local authority in England: https://bbf.uk.com/news/buckinghamshires-demography-2015

Fuel poverty: In 2014, 16,462 households in Buckinghamshire’s were in fuel poverty. This represents 7.9 per cent of all households in the county. All four districts had shares of fuel poverty below the national and regional levels ranging from 6.9 per cent in South Bucks to 8.4 per cent in Aylesbury Vale: https://bbf.uk.com/news/fuel-poverty-in-buckinghamshire-2014

Private rents: At £1,113 per month, mean private sector rents in Buckinghamshire are 35.7 per cent higher than across England as a whole, the 2nd highest among the 27 county council areas, ranking 3rd among the 39 Local Enterprise Partnerships, behind London and Oxfordshire: https://bbf.uk.com/news/private-sector-rents-in-buckinghamshire-q1-2016

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Visit the reports and analysis section of the Buckinghamshire Business First website for more data on a range of topics.