Labour Market Trends: September 2024

Claimant Count

This information is based on experimental monthly estimates of the number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits.

The experimental Claimant Count includes Jobseeker’s Allowance Claimants and those claimants of Universal Credit who were claiming principally for the reason of being unemployed (those in the “searching for work” conditionality regime). Those claiming such benefits may be wholly unemployed and seeking work, or may be employed but with low income and/or low hours, that make them eligible for unemployment-related benefit support. As part of the response to the pandemic, the rules around who could claim Universal Credit had changed, meaning an increased proportion of those claiming may actually still be in some kind of work.

Commencing in May 2024, the Department for Work and Pensions are rolling out an increase in the administrative earnings threshold for full work search conditionality. This change is likely to affect around 180,000 claimants in the UK over a period of around 6 months, increasing the Claimant Count over that time.

In August 2024, the claimant count in Scotland was 115,400, an increase of 2,100 (1.9 per cent) over the month and an increase of 7,000 (6.5 per cent) over the year. The claimant count unemployment rate in August 2024 was 4.0 per cent, compared with 4.7 per cent for the UK as a whole.

Chart 5: Experimental claimant count rate for Scotland and the UK showed a large increase at the start of the pandemic, reaching a peak in August 2020 before starting to gradually decrease. The claimant count for Scotland and the UK has been fairly constant since mid-2022 although the gap has widened in recent months

Claimant Count rate, seasonally adjusted, Scotland and UK, July 2019 to August 2024

Source: Claimant count, ONS