Public sector employment in Scotland: statistics for fourth quarter 2020

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 2020.


Table 7: Total devolved public sector employment by sector; Scotland, Full-time equivalent 1,4

Footnotes 1, 4

Not Seasonally Adjusted

  Total Devolved
Public Sector
NHS Civil Service Police and Fire Services2 Further Education Colleges3 Other Public Bodies Local Government2 Public Corporations
Q4 1999 387,200 106,900 14,000 - 11,500 8,000 238,000 9,000
Q4 2014 426,800 137,500 16,400 27,800 10,500 12,800 202,000 20,000
Q4 2015 425,800 138,300 15,900 27,400 10,600 13,800 200,000 20,000
Q4 2016 424,700 139,300 15,900 27,200 10,300 13,800 198,000 21,000
Q4 2017 427,100 140,300 16,300 26,900 10,400 13,900 199,000 21,000
Q4 2018 420,000 140,700 17,200 27,200 10,400 14,200 202,000 8,000
Q4 2019 r 427,200 142,500 19,500 27,400 10,500 14,300 205,000 8,000
Q4 2020 441,600 148,600 20,400 27,500 10,200 14,100 208,000 13,000
Change on year to:            
Q4 2020 14,480 6,170 930 100 -320 -220 2,940 4,890
% change on year:
Q4 2020 3.4% 4.3% 4.8% 0.3% -3.0% -1.5% 1.4% 60.7%

r - due to minor revisions to data

Notes:

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.

Contact

Email: LMStats@gov.scot

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