Monthly Count of Unemployed Benefit Claimants.
Unemployment:
Unemployment:
Statistics Division, Department of Employment.
The data cover the whole country and are based on computerised records and returns from about 1 000 unemployment benefit offices. They refer in principle to men aged 16 to 70 and women aged 16 to 65. In practice however, there are few unemployment claimants over the state retirement age (65 for men and 60 for women). Also certain groups less likely to be eligible for benefits may not be as well represented as others.
The series is monthly and started in October 1982, although estimates for previous periods back to 1971 are available. More detailed information such as unemployment by age and duration of unemployment are available quarterly.
Unemployment: People claiming benefits (that is unemployment benefit, supplementary benefits or national insurance credits) at unemployment benefit offices on the day of the monthly count, who on that day were unemployed and able and willing to do any suitable work.
Persons seeking temporary or part-time work are included provided the type of work sought is not such that there are no reasonable prospects of finding a job. First-time jobseekers claiming supplementary benefit are also included. Employable disabled persons including some severely disabled are also counted.
Persons leaving their job voluntarily or who are responsible for the loss of their last job are disqualified from receiving unemployment benefit for up to thirteen weeks, although they are included in the count provided their claim is not withdrawn (through claims for supplementary allowance).
A full-time working week is considered as "more than 30 hours"; persons working less than 30 hours per week can often be included in the count, although any supplementary benefit is offset against the amount of their earnings.
Students seeking temporary employment during vacation, intending to return to full-time education, are excluded but separate figures on them are available. Similarly, temporarily stopped (i.e. laid off) workers expecting to return to their job are excluded but recorded separately.
In ILO publications separate data series represent: Claimants at unemployment benefit offices excluding persons temporarily laid off; and Persons temporarily laid off.
Registration: Registration means signing as unemployed at an unemployment benefit office to claim benefits. It is usually accomplished by personal attendance, but sometimes by post, usually on a fortnightly basis. Registration is obligatory to receive benefits but it is no longer necessary to also register at an employment office (jobcentre) or careers office, except for persons under 18 years of age.
Deletion from the register: A claim is usually terminated after a week if the claimant fails to attend and does not subsequently contact the benefit office. Illness and injury of generally three days in principle leads to deletion from the register. Rejection of a suitable job offer normally disqualifies the claimant from benefit for up to six weeks.
Claimants participating in government training schemes or job-creation schemes are deleted from the unemployment count, except for some training schemes which are part-time. Refusal to participate in schemes will not normally lead to exclusion, but benefits may be affected.
Deletion from the register leads to exclusion from the unemployment count provided deletion occurs by the time the figures are compiled (now 3 weeks after the reference date) and the claimant has ceased to be unemployed before the reference date.
The reference period is a predetermined date each month, usually the second Thursday.
There is now a three-week waiting period between the count date and the compilation of the statistics. The waiting period was originally one week but it was extended in March 1986 so that a greater amount of late information about the status of claims could be taken into account with the intended effect of eliminating from the unemployment count persons who, for example, had obtained a job but did not immediately report to the unemployment benefit office.
There is a computerised count of records of claimants registered at unemployment benefit offices. Each day information on fresh claims, claim cancellations and other statistical details are extracted and sent to the statistics computer system, where a statistical record is maintained for each unemployment claimant. The details recorded include residential post code, sex, marital status, date of birth, dates of the start and the end of the unemployment spell, status as school leaver or student seeking vacation work.
Each month statistical summaries and analyses are extracted from the statistical file. Clerical counts are incorporated each month into the claims statistics that are not operated on the benefit computers. A large proportion of the clerical counts concerns claimants who have accepted the option of attending benefit offices once a quarter, rather than fortnightly.
Unemployment counts are evaluated annually by comparison with alternative unemployment estimates from the labour force survey, based on household interviews.
Unemployment rates are computed and published monthly with the monthly count of unemployed benefit claimants. The unemployment rate is computed as the number unemployed expressed as a percentage of the latest mid-year estimate of the working population (employees, the self-employed and the armed forces plus the unemployed count at the same date). The employment data are updated annually, using a combination of results from employer surveys, census of employment and the labour force survey.
Since October 1982, when the unemployed claimant series was introduced, there have been major changes in 1983 (affecting older men) and in March 1986 (extension of waiting period for compilation to reduce over-recording).
Before October 1982, registered unemployment statistics were based on counts of persons registering for work at jobcentres and careers offices.
Department of Employment: "Employment Gazette" (monthly) (London, 1988). Each issue refers to data from the preceding month.
For methodological information and descriptions of changes in historical series see:
idem: "Compilation of the unemployment statistics" in "Employment Gazette" (London, September 1982) pp. 389-393.
idem: "Changed basis of the unemployment statistics" (op. cit., December 1982) p.S20.
idem: "Change in the compilation of the monthly unemployment statistics" (op. cit., March 1986) pp. 107-108.
idem: "Unemployment figures: the claimant count and the Labour Force Survey" (op. cit., October 1986) pp. 417-422.