Labour Market Trends: February 2025

Key Points

• early seasonally adjusted estimates for January 2025 from HMRC Pay As You Earn Real Time Information indicate that there were 2.46 million payrolled employees in Scotland, a decrease of -0.1 per cent (-2,000) compared with January 2024. This compares with the UK where the number of payrolled employees had an increase of 0.2% over the same period
• early seasonally adjusted estimates for January 2025 from HMRC Pay As You Earn Real Time Information indicate that median monthly pay for payrolled employees in Scotland was £2,486, an increase of 5.2 per cent compared with January 2024. This is lower than the growth in median monthly pay for the UK over the same period (5.7 per cent). Changes over time are based on median monthly pay estimates rounded to the nearest pound
• in January 2025, the claimant count in Scotland was 110,600, an increase of 1,500 (1.4 per cent) over the month and an increase of 4,600 (4.3 per cent) over the year. The claimant count unemployment rate in January 2025 was 3.8 per cent, compared with 4.6 per cent for the UK as a whole

Due to increased volatility of the ONS Labour Force Survey estimates resulting from smaller achieved sample sizes, estimates of quarterly change should be treated with additional caution and ONS recommend using them as part of their suite of labour market indicators alongside Pay As You Earn Real Time Information estimates and claimant count data.

Estimates sourced from the ONS Labour Force Survey are presented for October to December 2024, compared with the quarter before (July to September 2024). Please note percentage point changes are based on unrounded data.

• the estimates for October to December 2024 indicate that over the quarter, the economic inactivity rate decreased while the employment and unemployment rates increased
• the estimated unemployment rate (16 and over) in Scotland was 3.8 per cent, up 0.5 percentage points over the quarter. Scotland's unemployment rate was below the UK rate of 4.4 per cent
• the estimated employment rate (the proportion of people aged 16 to 64 in work) in Scotland was 74.2 per cent, up 0.9 percentage points over the quarter. Scotland's employment rate was below the UK rate of 74.9 per cent
• the estimated economic inactivity rate (the proportion of people aged 16 to 64 years who were not working and not seeking or available to work) in Scotland was 22.8 per cent, down 1.2 percentage points over the quarter. Scotland's economic inactivity rate was above the UK rate of 21.5 per cent