Public sector employment in Scotland: statistics for fourth quarter 2020

4. Reserved Public Sector Employment in Scotland; Headcount

(see Table 4)

The number of people employed in the reserved public sector in December 2020 was 54,600, which is 1,720 (3.1%) lower than in December 2019.

The reserved public sector employment includes:

• Reserved Civil Service (see section 5);
• Armed Forces;
• Other Public Sector (which covers Public Sector Financial Institutions, Non-Departmental Bodies and Other Bodies).

Chart 5 shows the size of each group in the reserved public sector as at December 2020.

Source: Public Sector Employment in Scotland, Quarter 4 2020

Note: Totals may not equal the sum of the individual parts due to rounding.

The decrease over the year in the overall reserved public sector headcount was due to:

• Employment levels for Other Public Sector^[5] falling by -2,080 (-9.3%) from 22,300 in December 2019 to 20,200 in December 2020;

while:

• Employment levels for the Reserved Civil Service increased by 230
  (0.9%) to 24,600;
• Employment levels for the Armed Forces increased by 130 (1.3%) to 9,800.