Unemployment by constituency, February 2016

This paper contains claimant count figures for parliamentary constituencies, as well as a summary of the latest labour market statistics for the UK as a whole. 

• The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance or not in work and claiming Universal Credit fell by 14,800 between December 2015 and January 2016, to 760,200. 

• The unemployment rate was 5.1% in October-December 2015. The ILO measure of unemployment was 1.69 million people, down 60,000 from the previous quarter and down 172,000 from the previous year. 

• The number of people in employment was 31.42 million in October-December 2015, up 205,000 from the previous quarter and up 521,000 from the previous year. The employment rate was 74.1%, the highest since comparable records began in 1971. 

• Average weekly total pay in Great Britain increased by 1.9% in the three months to December 2015 compared with the previous year. Regular pay (excluding bonuses) grew by 2.0%. CPI inflation averaged 0.1% over this period.