DWP Alternative Claimant Count series

Today (22 January 2019) DWP released their first Alternative Claimant Count statistics.

The Claimant Count shows the number of people claiming unemployment related benefits. Because under Universal Credit a broader span of claimants are required to look for work than under Jobseekers Allowance, the roll-out of Universal Credit has the effect of increasing the count. Therefore changes in the Claimant Count are no longer reflecting changes in the economic climate. To address this, DWP have developed an Alternative Claimant Count, which models the number of people that would have been claiming unemployment related benefits if Universal Credit had been fully implemented since 2013. It lifts the Claimant Count to what it would have been under Universal Credit, by modelling additional claimants based on their benefits status. The new statistics therefore attempt to provide a consistent measure of claimant unemployment over time. The series released today covers periods from January 2013 to November 2018, for GB and is not seasonally adjusted.

Further updates are expected to be released quarterly, for the three months since the previous publication.

The DWP series can be found on the GOV.UK website