Labour Market Trends: November 2024

This publication contains:

• experimental monthly estimates of the number of payrolled employees and their median earnings and cover the period October 2024. Data are sourced from the HMRC’s Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system where people are recorded through the Real Time Information (RTI) system
• experimental Claimant Count estimates which cover the period October 2024
• the ONS Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates of employment, unemployment and economic inactivity. Estimates cover the period to July to September 2024

The statistics included in this release are official statistics in development. Official statistics in development may be new or existing statistics, and will be tested with users, in line with the standards of trustworthiness, quality, and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Key Points

• early seasonally adjusted estimates for October 2024 from HMRC Pay As You Earn Real Time Information indicate that there were 2.46 million payrolled employees in Scotland, similar to the level seen in October 2023. This compares with the UK where the number of payrolled employees had risen by 0.3 per cent over the same period
• early seasonally adjusted estimates for October 2024 from HMRC Pay As You Earn Real Time Information indicate that median monthly pay for payrolled employees in Scotland was £2,466, an increase of 6.2 per cent compared with October 2023. This is lower than the growth in median monthly pay for the UK over the same period (7.0 per cent). Changes over time are based on median monthly pay estimates rounded to the nearest pound
• in October 2024, the claimant count in Scotland was 114,800, an increase of 500 (0.5 per cent) over the month and an increase of 6,600 (6.1 per cent) over the year. The claimant count unemployment rate in October 2024 was 4.0 per cent, compared with 4.7 per cent for the UK as a whole

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

• the estimated unemployment rate (16 and over) in Scotland was 3.3 per cent, down 1.1 percentage points over the quarter. Scotland's unemployment rate was below the UK rate of 4.3 per cent
• the estimated employment rate (the proportion of people aged 16 to 64 in work) in Scotland was 73.7 per cent, up 0.3 percentage points over the quarter. Scotland's employment rate was below the UK rate of 74.8 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 23.7 per cent, up 0.6 percentage points over the quarter. Scotland's economic inactivity rate was above the UK rate of 21.8 per cent

The latest ONS Labour Force Survey estimates show that there are no statistically significant changes over the quarter or year in the headline labour market rate estimates for Scotland.