Public Sector Employment in Scotland Statistics for 1st 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 March 2023


Table 5: Total devolved public sector employment by sector; Scotland, Full-time equivalent

[1] [4]

Not Seasonally Adjusted

Quarter [5] Total Devolved
Public Sector
NHS Civil Service Police and Fire Services [2] Further Education Colleges [3] Other Public Bodies Local Government [2] Public Corporations
Q1 1999   384,000 106,000 14,100 - 11,500 7,700 235,000 9,000
Q1 2017 r 425,300 139,400 16,000 27,100 10,300 13,800 198,000 21,000
Q1 2018   427,200 139,900 16,400 26,800 10,500 14,000 199,000 21,000
Q1 2019   421,900 140,900 17,700 27,300 10,600 14,200 203,000 8,000
Q1 2020   429,700 143,400 20,000 27,700 10,600 14,200 206,000 8,000
Q1 2021   446,700 152,400 21,000 27,600 10,200 14,200 208,000 13,000
Q1 2022 r 460,300 156,900 25,000 27,100 10,400 14,000 214,000 12,000
Q1 2023   463,200 156,200 26,300 27,100 10,100 14,400 216,000 13,000
Change on year to Q1 2023 2,910 -700 1,230 -30 -290 410 1,620 680
% change on year Q1 2023 0.6% -0.4% 4.9% -0.1% -2.8% 2.9% 0.8% 5.5%

r - revision

1. Employment figures have been rounded to the nearest hundred, with the exception of local government and public corporation figures which are rounded to the nearest thousand; change on year rounded to the nearest ten; percentages are based on unrounded figures. "-" denotes blank entries. Totals may not equal the sum of individual parts due to rounding.

2. Police and Fire Reform: From Q2 2013 Police and Fire Services have been reclassified as central government rather than local government (as their predecessors were). All police staff are employed by the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) whether deployed with the SPA or with the Police Service of Scotland.

3. Information for further education colleges in Scotland is based on collected information from Q4 2010. The method used to create the back series is detailed in the background notes of this publication.

4. For further information on interpreting these series, see the series reclassification guide or background notes of the publication.

5. There have been minor revisions to this data since the Q1 data was published a year ago. The Scottish National Investment Bank and the 2023 World Cycling Championships Ltd have been added to the data within the last year, including a backseries (some of these revisions will not be apparent due to rounding). Q1 2022 is affected by a larger amendment made to include temporary census workers at NRS

Contact

Email: LMStats@gov.scot

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