Regional employment patterns in Scotland: statistics from the Annual Population Survey 2018

About this publication

This publication highlights the key statistics for Scotland’s labour market from the Annual Population Survey for 2018. Reliable and up-to-date headline information is presented for key indicators including; employment, equality characteristics of those in employment, underemployment, inactivity and youth participation in the labour market.

The first data from the APS was provided in 2004. As well as providing updated estimates for 2018 this publication includes trends over time and gives some indication of the variation across the 32 local authority areas within Scotland. This is the sixteenth publication of the series (known as Local Area Labour Markets in Scotland prior to 2015). Comparisons are usually made with the year before or 10 years before, or in some cases in the years following the highest point following the recession.

The Annual Population Survey (APS) is the primary source for information on local labour markets. It combines results from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the English, Welsh and

Scottish Labour Force Survey boosts. The boost increases the sample size in Scotland, which means the APS can provide more robust labour market estimates for local areas compared to the main LFS. The Scottish Government funds the boost to the LFS sample in Scotland, taking the sample size from approximately 5,000 households each year to 17,000 households.

Access the data in this publication

Supporting data for all indicators at local authority level are available in the publication web-tables

Data is also being made available on the Scottish Government Open Data Platform http://statistics.gov.scot/home

Results are provided for the calendar years (January to December) 2004 to 2018, based on the data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 20 March 2019. Analysis is based on the January to December dataset in each year.

ONS also release rolling quarterly datasets covering the periods April-March, July-June and October-September. The data for these time periods have not been used or presented within this publication or associated tables. The data for these is available at: https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/

Notes:

1. All statistics, charts and tables presented in this publication are sourced from the Annual Population Survey January-December datasets produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

2. Map data: Reproduced by permission of Ordnance Survey on behalf of HMSO. © Crown copyright and database right 2019. All rights reserved. Ordnance Survey Licence number 100024655