In 2022, the highest and lowest rates of economic inactivity were in the combined Pakistani and Bangladeshi (33%) and white 'other’ (15%) ethnic groups.

The number of unemployed people who have been claiming benefit continuously for more than 12 months divided by the total number of unemployed people claiming benefits, expressed as a percentage. Claimant count, age and duration data are based on computerised claims. Therefore while total unemployed claimants is available including clerical claims, for the purpose of this calculation both the numerator and denominator are restricted to computerised claims. To monitor the policy aim of tackling unemployment, focusing on long term unemployment. The indicator is based on the claimant count, which includes the number of people who are claiming Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) or National Insurance Credits. Unemployment is a significant risk factor for poor physical and mental health and therefore a major determinant of health inequalities. It is associated with morbidity, injuries, and premature mortality, especially through increased risk of coronary heart disease. It is also related to depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide. In addition, unemployment reinforces inequalities in health by social class. Legacy unique identifier: P01081

Claimant Count by sex for local and unitary authorities, counties and regions in the UK, published monthly. These are official statistics in development.

The headline measure of the claimant count has been changed to include some claimants of Universal Credit (UC) as well as Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) claimants, resulting in upward revisions to the claimant count back to May 2013. Previously the headline measure did not include UC claimants. The claimant count measures the number of people claiming unemployment related benefits. Between October 1996 and April 2013, the only unemployment related benefit in the UK was JSA and the claimant count was therefore a count of the number of people claiming JSA. There have been revisions to the claimant count back to January 2012, resulting from the annual review of the seasonal adjustment process, and revisions to national and regional claimant count rates back to 2001, resulting from updating the denominators to take account of the latest estimates of Workforce Jobs. There have been further revisions to the claimant count back to May 2013 resulting from incorporating estimates of Universal Credit.

The Labour Market Indicators spreadsheet for boroughs and regions will no longer be updated from March 2015. The final version from March 2015 will still be available to download at the bottom of this page. Most of the data is available within datasets elsewhere on the Datastore.

Workforce Jobs
Unemployment
Model based Unemployment for Boroughs
Claimant Count rates for Boroughs and Wards
Employment Rate Trends
Employment rates by Gender, Age and Disability
Number of Self Employed, Full and Part Time Employed
Employment by Occupation
Employment by Industry
Employment, Unemployment, Economic Activity and Inactivity Rates by Disability
Employment by Ethnicity
Economic Inactivity by Gender and Reason
Qualifications of Economically Active, Employed and Unemployed
Qualification levels of working-age population
Apprenticeship Starts and Achievements
Young People Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET), Borough
19 year olds Qualified to NVQ Level 3
GCE A level examination results of 16-18 year olds
GCSE Results by Pupil Characteristics
People Claiming Out-of-Work Benefits
People Claiming Incapacity Benefit
Children Living in Workless Households
Gross Value Added, and Gross Disposable Household Income
Earnings by place of residence
Earnings by place of work
Business Demographics
Employment projections by sector
Jobs Density
Population Estimates
Population Migration

Core Indicators

Number of London residents of working age in employment
Employment rate
Number of male London residents of working age in employment
Male employment rate
Number of female London residents of working age in employment
Female employment rate
Workforce jobs
Jobs density
Number of London residents of working age who are economically inactive
Economic inactivity rate
Number of London residents aged 16+ who are unemployed (model based)
Proportion of London residents aged 16+ who are unemployed (model based)
Claimant unemployment
Claimant Count as a proportion of the working age population
Incidence of skill gaps (Numbers and rates)
GCSE (5+ A*–C) attainment including English and Maths
Number of working age people in London with no qualifications
Proportion of working age people in London with no qualifications
Number of working age people in London with Level 4+ qualifications
Proportion of working age people in London with Level 4+ qualifications
Number of people of working age claiming out of work benefits
Proportion of the working age population who claim out of work benefits
Number of young people aged 16-18 who are not in

In the first quarter of 2025, an estimated 2.78 million people were economically inactive due to being on long-term sickness leave in the UK, slightly down from a peak of over 2.84 million people in the fourth quarter of 2023. This figure has been rising considerably since 2019, when there were just over two million people economically inactive for this reason. Since the third quarter of 2021, long-term and temporary sickness has been the main reason that people were economically inactive, accounting for 32.1 percent of economic inactivity in the fourth quarter of 2024. What is driving the increase in long-term sickness? It is unclear if there are any specific reasons for the continued growth of long-term sickness in the UK. As of 2022, some of the most common health conditions cited as the reason for long-term sickness were to do with mental health issues, with 313,00 suffering from mental illness, and a further 282,000 for depression-related illness. It is also likely that the COVID-19 pandemic caused an impact, with around 1.8 million people in April 2022 reporting an experience of Long Covid. In general, while the majority of people on long-term sick leave are over the age of 50, there has been a noticeable increase in those aged under 35 being off on long-term sickness. Between 2019 and 2022, the number of those aged between 16 and 34 on long-term sickness increased by 140,000, compared with just 32,000 for those aged between 35 and 49. UK labor market set to continue cooling in 2025? In 2022, the UK labor market was slightly more weighted in favor of workers and people looking for work than usual. Unemployment fell to historical levels, while job vacancies reached a peak of more than 1.3 million in May. Wage growth also remained strong during this period, although as this occurred at a time of high inflation, wages fell in real terms for a long period between November 2021 and June 2023. Although the job market continued to show signs of resilience, for some time, there are signs this is now changing. In December 2024, the UK unemployment rate was 4.4 percent, a joint post-pandemic high, while in the same month job vacancies fell to their lowest level since May 2021.

Claimant Count by sex including Jobseeker's Allowance and out of work Universal Credit claimants, UK, published monthly. These are official statistics in development.

Experimental statistics on children in out-of-work benefit households. These figures show the numbers of children living in households where at least one parent or guardian claimed one or more of the following out-of-work benefits: Job Seekers

Source: Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)

Publisher: Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)

Geographies: Local Authority District (LAD), Government Office Region (GOR), National, Parliamentary Constituency

Geographic coverage: Great Britain

Time coverage: 2008

Type of data: Administrative data

In the 3 years to March 2021, white British families were the most likely to receive a type of state support.

This indicator measures the percentage of the working age population who are claiming out of work benefits. Working age benefits include the main out-of-work client group categories (unemployed people on Jobseekers Allowance, Lone Parents on Income Support, Incapacity Benefits customers, and others on income-related benefits with the exception of carers who are not subject to activation policies in the same way as other groups). The working age population is defined as the sum of females aged 16-59 plus males aged 16-64. Data are presented as a rolling average of 4 quarters to account for seasonal variation.

39.8% of workers from the Indian ethnic group were in 'professional' jobs in 2021 – the highest percentage out of all ethnic groups in this role.

This data has been taken from LGInform at http://lginform.local.gov.uk/ data reference ID 5470

The figures show the numbers of people claiming unemployment benefits aged between 25-49 and living in Plymouth. The data is monthly and shows data ranging from Jan 2013 to May 2017.

Number of people claiming unemployment related benefits, aged 25-49 - This is the total number of people aged 24-49 claiming unemployment related benefits (Claimant Count).

The Claimant Count is a measure of the number of people claiming benefits principally for the reason of being unemployed, based on administrative data from the benefits system.

From April 2015, the Claimant Count includes all Universal Credit claimants who are required to seek work and be available for work, as well as all Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) claimants, between May 2013 and March 2015, the Claimant Count includes all out of work Universal Credit claimants as well as all JSA claimants prior to this the Claimant Count is a count of the number of people claiming JSA.

The Claimant Count includes people who claim unemployment related benefits but who do not receive payment. For example some claimants will have had their benefits stopped for a limited period of time by Jobcentre Plus. Some people claim JSA in order to receive National Insurance Credits.

The Claimant Count does not attempt to measure unemployment, which is a concept defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as all those who are out of work, actively seeking work and available to start work.

However, since the people claiming benefits are generally a particular subset of the unemployed, the Claimant Count can provide a useful indication of how unemployment is likely to vary between areas and over time.

The Claimant Count estimates provide the best available estimates of the number of people claiming unemployment related benefits in the UK.

Source name: Nomis Collection name: Claimant county by sex and age Polarity: No polarity

Polarity is how sentiment is measured "Sentiment is usually considered to have "poles" positive and negative these are often translated into "good" and "bad" sentiment analysis is considered useful to tell us what is good and bad in our information stream

At most qualification levels, white people aged 16 to 64 were the least likely to be unemployed out of all ethnic groups in 2022.

The Labour Market Indicators spreadsheet for boroughs and regions will no longer be updated from March 2015. The final version from March 2015 will still be available to download at the bottom of this page. Most of the data is available within datasets elsewhere on the Datastore.

Workforce Jobs
Unemployment
Model based Unemployment for Boroughs
Claimant Count rates for Boroughs and Wards
Employment Rate Trends
Employment rates by Gender, Age and Disability
Number of Self Employed, Full and Part Time Employed
Employment by Occupation
Employment by Industry
Employment, Unemployment, Economic Activity and Inactivity Rates by Disability
Employment by Ethnicity
Economic Inactivity by Gender and Reason
Qualifications of Economically Active, Employed and Unemployed
Qualification levels of working-age population
Apprenticeship Starts and Achievements
Young People Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET), Borough
19 year olds Qualified to NVQ Level 3
GCE A level examination results of 16-18 year olds
GCSE Results by Pupil Characteristics
People Claiming Out-of-Work Benefits
People Claiming Incapacity Benefit
Children Living in Workless Households
Gross Value Added, and Gross Disposable Household Income
Earnings by place of residence
Earnings by place of work
Business Demographics
Employment projections by sector
Jobs Density
Population Estimates
Population Migration

Core Indicators

Number of London residents of working age in employment
Employment rate
Number of male London residents of working age in employment
Male employment rate
Number of female London residents of working age in employment
Female employment rate
Workforce jobs
Jobs density
Number

Approximately 14.2 percent of people aged 16 to 24 were unemployed in the United Kingdom in the first quarter of 2025, the highest of any age group in that month. During this time period, older age groups have had much lower unemployment rates than younger ones, who have consistently had the highest unemployment rate. For almost all the age groups, the peak in the unemployment rate was recorded in 2011 when almost a quarter of young working age people were unemployed. Young adults in the labor market In the provided time period, youth unemployment was at its lowest rate in the third quarter of 2022, when it was 10.3 percent. Since then, there has been a noticeable uptick in youth unemployment, which was 14.8 percent towards the end of 2024. A more long-term trend among this age group is the increase in economic inactivity, with 40.8 percent of 16 to 24-year-old's not in work or actively looking for work in 2024. Although students or people in training account for a high share of this economic inactivity, there has also been a rise in the proportion of young adults who are not in education, employment or training (NEET), which reached a ten-year-high of 13.2 percent in late 2024. Unemployment up from low baseline in late 2024 In 2022, the UK labor market, had very low levels of unemployment along with a record number of job vacancies. Throughout 2023 and 2024, this very tight labor market began to loosen, although is still quite low by historic standards. One indicator that has stood out since the COVID-19 pandemic, however, has been the number of people economically inactive due to being on long-term sick leave, which reached 2.82 million in the first quarter of 2024, and has been the main reason for economic inactivity in the UK since late 2021.

Active labour market policies (ALMPs) are government interventions traditionally focused on moving unemployed people into work. As those ultimately in control of the employment opportunities participants are seeking to access, employers are fundamental to ALMP outcomes. However, research and policy relating to ALMP has tended to ignore employers. Focusing on UK ALMP, as enacted through Universal Credit, this research helps to advance knowledge of this topic by focusing on employer perspectives of ALMP and the conditionality that underpins it for unemployed people and workers on a low income. The research explored how ALMP is understood and experienced by UK employers, how it impacts on how businesses are run, and how employment services can work more effectively with employers, leading to better outcomes for individuals and the wider economy. The UK's main vehicle for ALMP, and flagship policy of recent welfare reforms is Universal Credit (UC). UC is the new working age benefit for those who are either out of work or on a low income. Under UC, social security for unemployed people is conditional on claimants demonstrating work search and other work-related activities. This is underpinned by a 'Work First' approach, emphasising high volumes of applications and fast work re-entry. It also potentially involves the extension of conditionality to those in work, blurring the traditional distinction between social security claimants who are in and outside of the paid labour market . Aims and objectives The project had four main aims. Through qualitative semi-structured interviews with employers, policymakers and other key stakeholders, this research project: 1. explored how UK ALMP is understood and experienced by employers 2. identified how ALMP impacts UK businesses, including how they recruit, retain and progress their staff (including differences between sectors) 3. explored how the impact of ALMP on employers varies in different low pay sectors 4. explored how the public employment service can work effectively with employers to lead to better employment outcomes for claimants The final project report is available via Related Resources.

This dataset uses ONS Claimant Count estimates to monitor unemployment in Leicester.Claimant Count is the number of people claiming Universal Credit or Jobseekers' Allowance principally for the reason of being unemployed.Claimant Count is a useful proxy for unemployment because it is the most comprehensive unemployment-related dataset published at geographies smaller than the local authority level. While there is significant overlap, it is not the same as the official measure for unemployment, which is based on estimates from the Labour Force Survey and Annual Population Survey.Claimant Count is best used for understanding short term changes in the labour market and the relative position of small areas.Rates are calculated using ONS mid-year or census based population estimates for the 16-64 year old population as a denominator.A dashboard has also been produced summarising this data into a single page. Click here to view: DashboardFurther information: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/aguidetolabourmarketstatistics#introduction