Unemployment has grown in London during Labour’s first year in office – even as fewer people are out of work and looking for jobs across most of the rest of the country, particularly the North. In contrast to gloomy national projections, which show the UK unemployment rate at a four-year high, most parliamentary constituencies have seen falling numbers of people receiving unemployment benefits.
As of July, 1.71 million were unemployed and claiming benefits. That’s 6,200 fewer than in June, and 71,500 fewer than in July 2024, when Labour took office. However, it is still 465,500 more people on unemployment benefits than in March 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the UK labour market.
And the picture looks far worse in London than across the rest of the nation. The figures – which use claimant counts to measure unemployment in local areas – show that in London, 364,150 people were unemployed as of July. That’s 9,885 more than in July 2024, a rise of 2.8%.
Putney saw the biggest rise in people claiming unemployment benefits, of 16.7% to 3,835, an increase of 550 claimants.
Unemployment also increased by 13.3% in Poplar and Limehouse and Croydon South, 13.0% in Eltham and Chislehurst, and 11.7% in Battersea.
Meanwhile, in Brent East, unemployment remained fairly stable, rising by just 0.8% to 8,985 people, an increase of 75. However, that still means 9.8% of the population in Brent East, or one in 10 people, were unemployed and looking for work in July, the highest unemployment rate in London.
The picture was much more cheerful in some other parts of London, with unemployment dropping in several constituencies.
That includes Tottenham, which had the highest unemployment rate as of July 2024 (9.8%). While unemployment is still high in Tottenham (9.5%), claimant numbers have fallen by 295, or 3.1%.
The biggest drop in unemployment in our city was in Edmonton and Winchmore Hill, where it fell by 10.9%, followed by Ealing Central and Acton (4.7%) and Enfield North (4.4%). See how it compares to where you live using our interactive map below.
The figures were revealed after Labour marked a full year in government. Chancellor Rachel Reeves conceded that the government had “more to do” on unemployment.
Separate UK-wide figures showed the unemployment rate stuck at a four-year high of 4.7%. This is measured using surveys to include everyone looking for and available for work, whether they are claiming benefits or not, which is the international measure of unemployment, as defined by the International Labour Organisation.
However, this method is not reliable for assessing unemployment at a local level because of the small number of survey respondents in each area. A more effective method of measuring unemployment locally is using claimant count figures, the number of people claiming Jobseekers Allowance plus people claiming Universal Credit with a requirement to seek work.
They show how many people are looking for work and claiming benefits in each parliamentary constituency. The UK unemployment benefits claimant rate is lower than the unemployment rate. It was 4.2% when Labour took office in July 2024, but now stands at 4.0%.
While it is not reliable for measuring long-term trends in unemployment because it can be affected by changes to benefit rules, claimant counts are the most effective way to measure unemployment locally.
In November, the government published the Get Britain Working White Paper, an ambitious roadmap to achieving an 80% employment rate. The latest figures show the UK employment rate stood at 75.3% from April to June, a 0.3% increase from the previous three months.
The government’s white paper, backed by a £240 million investment, seeks to “target and tackle the root causes of unemployment and inactivity”.
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