Cost-of-living September 2023 monthly monitoring report

Wednesday 20 September 2023 10.18am

The September 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 (August 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:

• Inflation fell slightly in August 2023 - the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 6.3% in the 12 months to August 2023, down from 6.4% in July.
• The number of people claiming Universal Credit remains significantly higher than the pandemic peak.
• Increasing numbers of people claiming Universal Credit, with numbers now higher than the pandemic peak.
• The number of people claiming out-of-work related benefits fell marginally in August but numbers continue to be significantly higher now than pre-pandemic.
• The number of unique job postings rose in August and was much higher than in the same month last year and immediately prior to the pandemic.
• The most in-demand specialized skills in this period (by frequency in job postings) were nursing, auditing and personal care.