Cost-of-Living Crisis - June 2023 Monthly Monitoring Report

Wednesday 14 June 2023 10.38am

The June 2023 monthly monitoring report has just been published on the Cost-of-Living page of the Understanding Herefordshire website .  The monthly monitoring report is a supplementary report to the quarterly Cost-of-Living Bulletin, the latest (May 2023) edition of which is also available from the same page, and provides the latest data from the limited number of relevant datasets that are updated on a monthly basis. 

Topics include Universal Credit and out-of-work benefit claimants and job postings. 

This month's report shows:

• The number of people claiming the Universal Credit (UC) doubled between March 2020 and May 2020.  Since then the claimant numbers have remained at a high level and in May 2023 were higher than the pandemic peak in April 2021.
• Numbers claiming unemployment related benefits in May 2023: were slightly down on the previous month: the first fall seen since October 2022. Numbers remain significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels.
• Generally, those wards with the highest numbers of claimants before the pandemic still have the highest numbers now. 
• The number of unique job postings in the county rose significantly in May 2023: the second consecutive month-on-month increase. Posting levels remain at a relatively high level and in May 2023 were much higher than a year ago and immediately before the first pandemic lockdown in February 2020).
• The top ten posted occupations (SOC 3 level) in the period June 2022 to May 2023 were caring personal services and nursing and midwifery professionals.
• The most in-demand specialized skills in this period (by frequency in job postings) were nursing, auditing and finance