UK unemployment benefit claims rise 70% to reach 2.1 million
The number of people claiming benefit due to unemployment saw a monthly rise of 69.1 per cent in April, reaching 2.1 million on 9 April.
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The figures, published by the Office for National Statistics today (see graph), combine the number of claimants of Jobseeker’s Allowance and claimants of Universal Credit who fall within the “‘searching for work’ conditionality” to create what the ONS calls ‘claimant count’.
The measure intends to record the number of people claiming benefit principally for the reason of being unemployed, but is not wholly comparable year on year because under Universal Credit a broader span of claimants became eligible for unemployment-related benefit.
The region with the largest monthly increase in claimant count was the South West, which increased by 97.9 per cent, while the West Midlands had the smallest increase of 50.9 per cent.
Figures provided by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)covering the number of people claiming Universal Credit for the four-week period 12 March to 9 April showed an increase of 1.02 million claims in England month on month, to reach 3.61 million (see table).
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Total figures for England, Wales and Scotland were 4.21 million, up from 3.01 million in the four weeks to 12 March.
As Social Housing reported in April, the surge in claims for Universal Credit was already visible in the first two weeks following the government’s initial lockdown measures and extensions to the benefit.
Around 950,000 people made successful Universal Credit applications in the period from 16 to 31 March, compared to the circa 100,000 applications the government would expect to receive during a normal two-week period, a DWP representative told Social Housing at the time.
The government announced a series of extensions to Universal Credit as part of a package of measures to support individuals and the economy through the outbreak. On 20 March, chancellor Rishi Sunak said that the standard allowance for Universal Credit would be increased by £1,000 per year for the next 12 months, with the Working Tax Credit basic element of the scheme increasing by the same amount. The changes came into effect on 6 April.
On 26 March, Mr Sunak announced that self-employed workers would have access “in full” to Universal Credit.
Last week, the chancellor confirmed that the UK furlough scheme which supports employers, would be extended by four months, to the end of October. The scheme enables orgnasisations, whether for-profit or charitable, to access government funding to cover 80 per cent of the wages of employees who cannot work during the crisis, up to £2,500 per month, and had initially covered the three months backdated from 1 March to the end of May.
This will now be extended, but the chancellor said that the government will ask companies to start sharing the cost of the scheme from August, alongside greater flexibility to support employees to return to work.
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