Labour Market Statistics for 16 to 24 year olds: Scotland and the United Kingdom - October 2023 to September 2024

Introduction

This publication contains the latest estimates of employment, unemployment and economic inactivity for 16 to 24 year olds. Estimates are for Scotland and the United Kingdom and cover the period October 2023 to September 2024. Data are sourced from the Annual Population Survey (APS); first released on 11 December 2024 by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

An Official Statistics Publication for Scotland

These statistics are official statistics. Official statistics are statistics that are produced by crown bodies, those acting on behalf of crown bodies, or those specified in statutory orders, as defined in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

Scottish Government statistics are regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

More information about Scottish Government statistics is available on the Scottish Government website.

About the Annual Population Survey

The APS combines results from the ONS Labour Force Survey (LFS) with the English, Welsh and Scottish LFS boosts. This provides a larger annual sample of households. Compared with the quarterly LFS, the annual data is statistically more robust. Estimates for smaller populations (including those aged 16 to 24 years) are more accurate as a result.

The population totals used for the latest APS estimates differ from the population totals used in the reweighted LFS estimates and use projected growth rates from Real Time Information data for UK, EU and non-EU populations based on 2021 patterns. The total population used for the APS therefore does not take into account any changes in migration, birth rates, death rates, and so on, since June 2021, so level estimates may be under- or over-estimating the true values and should be used with caution. Estimates of rates will, however, be robust.

How Response Rates Are Impacting the Annual Population Survey

ONS have carried out analysis to assess the quality of APS estimates. The impact of falling sample sizes in addition to the APS estimates not being reweighted to use the latest population totals have led ONS, in agreement with the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), to temporarily suspend the accreditation of all APS-based outputs. All ONS APS-based outputs will be re-designated as official statistics in development until further review.

Further details on this can be found in the exchange between ONS and OSR: Michael Keoghan  to Siobhan Tuohy-Smith: Request to suspend APS accreditation – Office for Statistics Regulation

The Scottish Government’s Labour Market Statistics for 16 to 24 year olds publication includes employment, unemployment and economic inactivity estimates for 16 to 24 year olds. These statistics are taken from the APS and therefore the estimates included will no longer be Accredited Official Statistics.

We continue to be transparent with our users around the quality of the APS estimates used within our releases and provide guidance on the use and limitations of the data. Please note, due to the falling sample sizes in recent years, the increased uncertainty around the estimates included in this release can be assessed using the confidence intervals provided. We have assessed the quality of the estimates for 16-24 year olds using the current ONS Measuring and reporting reliability of Labour Force Survey and Annual Population Survey estimates guidance and additional analysis of an estimate’s coefficient of variation.

After considering the quality of the estimates for 16-24 year olds and breakdowns such as sex and full-time education status, we have decided to remove all breakdowns which would typically have been included within the outputs for this release to allow for additional quality assessment of the data to be carried out. Therefore, this publication only includes the headline 16-24 year old estimates.

We continue to assess the quality of APS estimates included within our publications and will provide updates to our users. On 14th November 2024, the Chief Statistician published a statement on the Annual Population survey, this can be found here: Statistics Statement from the Chief Statistician on the Annual Population Survey - Statistics

Labour Market Transformation

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) are transforming the Labour Force Survey (LFS) to enable a more adaptive and responsive survey to meet user needs and maintain the quality of labour market statistics. They are publishing articles on the transformation. In December 2024, ONS published an article on the latest progress of the Labour Force Survey transformation.

ONS also welcome any feedback on this latest update and their plans. Please email them at labour.market.transformation@ons.gov.uk to tell them what you think.