The great unemployment disappearing act

Today's unemployment figures revealed that the internationally recognised measure of UK unemployment fell by 48,000 and the claimant count (i.e. the number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance) fell by 41,700.

These two figures were remarkably close. To the uninitiated naively logical this might seem to corroborate that there are roughly 40-50,000 fewer unemployed people in the last 3 months.

However, with those subtractions ILO unemployment stood at 2.47 million, while the claimant count was only 1.31 million. So in relative terms the fall in the claimant count was nearly twice as sharp.

As the graph below shows - this is not a one-off occurence but part of a 20-year trend that has seen the ILO unemployment measure part company with claimant count.

Whereas the claimant count accounted for 96.6% of ILO unemployment 20 years ago in 1993, three years later the claimant count was only 83.2%. Five years on again - or twelve years ago - in 2001, the claimant count was just 64.5%.

Today, the claimant count was just under 53% of the ILO measure.

It is not entirely clear why this has happened. Certainly a part of the reason is the increased conditionality, and reduced eligibility that has applied to claiming unemployment benefit since the 1995 Jobseekers Act - and toughened by successive welfare reform acts under successive governments.

The recent sharp downturn in the claimant count - and sharp relative to ILO unemployment - is no doubt partially explained by the increase in sanctions (see LEAP analysis 6 November 2013).

But the rut set in slightly earlier. Under the Major government the claimant count averaged 93.3% of the ILO measure. In the Blair/Brown New Labour years, the claimant count averaged just 63.1%, and under Cameron's coalition government to date that has already dropped again to 59.9% (and was 53% in today's figures).

It means that the claimant count is becoming a less reliable indicator of true unemployment. With an increased sanctions regime, and extra conditionality generally (including workfare), and the demonisation of claimants as 'scroungers' and 'skivers', jobseeker's allowance has become a daunting benefit to claim.

As PCS research has found (see infographic here) the real value of unemployment benefit has fallen from 18% of average wages in 1990 to just 13% today.

With increasingly greater sanctions, more conditionality, less eligibility, more stigma and less value - is it any wonder the claimant count now represents barely half the true level of unemployment.