Claimant Count

Official statistics in development

This indicator shows Claimant Count as a percentage of residents aged 16 to 64 (official statistics in development), in the UK, for 2001 to 2024.

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Claimant Count

Percentage of people aged 16 to 64 who are claiming unemployment-related benefits, 2024

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Selected time periods range: 2001 to 2024
2001
2024

Claimant Count

Percentage of people aged 16 to 64 who are claiming unemployment-related benefits, 2001 to 2024

Line chart for Claimant Count. The data is available to download below.

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Claimant Count

Percentage of people aged 16 to 64 who are claiming unemployment-related benefits, 2024

Bar chart for Claimant Count. The data is available to download below.

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Table

Claimant Count

Percentage of people aged 16 to 64 who are claiming unemployment-related benefits, 2001 to 2024

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Interpretation

Proportions of people claiming are the number of claimants divided by the population aged from 16 to 64 from mid-year 2021 population estimates.

The experimental Claimant Count consists of claimants of Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) and some Universal Credit (UC) Claimants. The UC claimants that are included are 1) those that were recorded as not in employment (May 2013-April 2015), and 2) those claimants of Universal Credit who are required to search for work, i.e. within the Searching for Work conditionality regime as defined by the Department for Work & Pensions (from April 2015 onwards).

The count is based on live claims on the second Thursday of the reference month.

Under certain circumstances, some people are able to claim both contribution-based JSA and UC at the same time. Consequently, there has been a small amount of double counting. Information from DWP suggests this double counting increased at the start of the pandemic and has stabilised at approximately 1.0 to 1.5% of the Claimant Count.

Northern Ireland local government districts Claimant Count figures are only available from 2013 onwards.

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Please note that these are official statistics in development.

Quality and Methodology Information for the Explore Local Statistics service details the strengths and limitations of the service, methods used, data uses and users.

Other indicators

Claimant Count is one of 78 local indicators on the Explore local statistics service. See the full list of local indicators.