Public Sector Employment in Scotland Statistics for 4th Quarter 2023
Statistics based on administrative records and surveys of individual public sector bodies carried out by the Scottish Government and the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is a snapshot of employment as at December 2023.
Public Sector Employment by Devolved and Reserved Responsibility; Headcount
The devolved public sector covers those bodies which are the responsibility of the Scottish Government or Scottish Parliament while the reserved public sector in Scotland covers those bodies for which the UK Government has ministerial responsibility.
The devolved public sector headcount was 9,320 (1.7%) higher in December 2023 compared with December 2022 and the reserved public sector was 1,200 (2.1%) higher.
In the devolved public sector, Public Corporations saw the largest percentage increase (5.4%) over the year, while Further Education Colleges saw the largest percentage decrease (-7.0%).
The largest increase in headcount over the year was in the NHS (increasing by 6,000) and the largest decrease was in Further Education Colleges (decreasing by 920).
In the reserved public sector, both the Civil Service and Other Public Sector[1] saw a percentage increase of 3.1%, while the Armed Forces had a percentage decrease of 1.9%.
Changes in the devolved and reserved public sector are explored in more detail in sections 3 and 4 respectively.
Figure 4: Both the Devolved and Reserved public sectors have increased over the year
Breakdown of Public Sector[2] employment (Headcount) in Scotland and annual change from December 2022 to December 2023
Source: Public Sector Employment in Scotland, Quarter 4 2023
[1] For the Reserved sector: Public corporations, public sector financial institutions and public bodies have been combined into ‘other public sector’ to ensure individual organisation employment figures are not disclosed.
[2] For further details on the make-up of the Scottish Public Sector, please see the background notes for this publication on the About public sector employment statistics – background notes webpage
Contact
Email: LMStats@gov.scot
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