Unemployment

The unemployment rate is the percentage of the economically active population (employed and unemployed) that are unemployed.

Figure 1 shows the unemployment rate reported by the Labour Force Survey. Each point represents the results from interviews conducted over a 12 month period.

When comparing similar periods among the three years, the unemployment rate has decreased from 2015 to 2016 and slightly increased from 2016 to 2017.

Figure 1: Unemployment rate of population aged 16+ in Trafford

The Claimant count includes individuals claiming Universal Credit or Jobseekers Allowance due to unemployment. Figure 2 shows the Claimant count rates of the economically active population. The unemployment rate differs from claimant count rates because it includes the unemployed people that do not claim benefits.

The rate has remained at or slightly below 2% during 2015 to 2017. The rate has slightly increased during 2018, reaching 2.3%.

Figure 2: Claimant count rates of population aged 16+ in Trafford

Figure 3 shows the composition of ages of claimants in Trafford wards in March 2018. The difference in column width reflects the difference of the number of claimants in each ward.

To better safeguard the confidentiality of information about individual claimants, the published data on the Claimant Count is rounded to the nearest 5.

In the 6 wards with the highest number of claimants (Clifford to St Mary's in Figure 3), the claimants under 34 account for 40% to 50% of the total number of claimants.

Figure 3: Age group of claimants in Trafford by wards, March 2018*

People without a job who have not sought work in the last four weeks and/or are not available to start work in the next two weeks are classified as economically inactive.

According to the Census 2011 in Trafford wards, the percentage of the population aged 16 or over that are economically inactive varies from 27.3% in Broadheath to 42% in Hale Barns, as shown in Figure 4.

Hale Barns is also the ward with the lowest percentage of unemployment with 2.3% whilst Clifford had the highest with 8.3%

Figure 4: Economic inactivity and unemployment in Trafford wards, 2011

For 20 wards the most common reason for economic inactivity is retirement reaching 63.7% in Timperley. Clifford shows a different composition with the highest rate of 'student' (23.6%) and 'looking after home' (22.6%), and a high rate of 'long-term sick/disable' (21.8%).

In Hale Central, a high percentage of people (20.8%) report being 'student' as the reason for economic inactivity, contrasting with the 5.4% reporting being 'long-term sick/disable' as the reason, the lowest percentage among wards in that category.

Figure 5: Reasons for economic inactivity in Trafford wards