Measuring Unemployment in the UK

In the UK there are two main measures of unemployment - the Claimant count (number receiving benefits) and the ILO Labour Force Survey

This method calculates unemployment by measuring the number of people receiving benefits (Job Seekers allowance)

There are two types of JSA

Contribution based JSA - if you have paid two years of NI contributions, you can be paid JSA whatever you income and savings. This can be paid for 6 months.
Income Based JSA - This is paid to those on low incomes and with low savings. If you have not made sufficient contributions, you will still be eligible for this as long as your income is not too high.

The governmentt has often changed the criteria (30 times since 1979) for those who are eligible for benefits, usually this has been to reduce the claimant count. This makes it difficult to compare over time.
The claimant count excludes:

People over pension age, who will typically claim pensions rather than JSA
People under 18, (with a few exceptions)
People in full time education, who may still be classed as unemployed.
People not eligible for contribution based JSA. To claim the contributions based JSA they need to have paid at least two years of NI contributions.
Also, their level of savings or their partner's income may be too high to be eligible.
Any one on a government training schemes,
Some people may not claim JSA even when they are eligible to.
Married women looking to return to work
Those looking for part time work and not full time work

Some people may claim benefits whilst still working in the “black market" i.e. claim JSA fraudulently.
Some people may be able to work upto 16 hours a week and still legally claim JSA
Some people may be eligible for JSA but actually classed as inactive rather than unemployed. For example, if you do insufficient searching for job, you may be classed as economically inactive.

This is compiled using the ILO criteria of comparing unemployment. The criteria involve:

are without a job, want a job, have actively sought work in the last four weeks, and are able to start work within thenext two weeks; or
are out of work, have found a job and are waiting to start it
in the next two weeks

The Labour Force survey ass 60,000 people whether they are unemployed and whether they are looking for a job.