Scotland's Labour Market Insights: July 2024

Key Points

The Scottish Government’s Labour Market Trends mainly reports on headline Office for National Statistics (ONS) Labour Force Survey estimates for Scotland. 

This Scotlands Labour Market Insights report contains more detailed estimates describing those who are employed, unemployed or economically inactive as well as vacancy and business insights sources. A range of official sources are presented.

People in work

• an estimated 74.4 per cent of those in employment aged 16 and over in April 2023 to March 2024 worked full-time, while 25.6 per cent of those in employment worked part-time
• in April 2023 to March 2024, a higher proportion of men were in full-time employment than women (87.1% of men compared to 61.4% of women)
• an estimated 306,200 people were self-employed in April 2023 to March 2024
• in April 2023 to March 2024, an estimated 127,200 employees were employed on temporary contracts
• in January to December 2023, an estimated 5.9 per cent of those in employment were underemployed (those who are in employment but who want to work more hours). The joint lowest rate in the series
• the 65 and over age group has seen the largest percentage growth in payrolled employees over the year to June 2024
• adjusted for inflation (using the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH)), real median earnings for payrolled employees have grown by 2.4 per cent over the year to June 2024

People not in work

• the majority of people aged 16 and over who are unemployed have been unemployed for less than six months
• “long-term sick or disabled” was reported as the main reason for being economically inactive in Scotland. In April 2023 to March 2024, an estimated 32.7 per cent of those people aged 16 to 64 who were inactive gave their reason for being inactive as “long-term sick or disabled”, the highest percentage in the series
• in April 2023 to March 2024, an estimated 16.5 per cent of people aged 16 to 64 who were inactive reported that they wanted to work, the lowest percentage in the April to March series

People moving into work

• Adzuna online job adverts in Scotland in the week to 12 July 2024 decreased by 1% when compared with the previous week
• ONS’ Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) data for May 2024 show that an estimated 26.8% of businesses reported experiencing difficulties in recruiting employees
• No One Left Behind (NOLB) and Fair Start Scotland (FSS) are Scottish Government funded employability support services. So far, there have been a combined 132,443 starts between FSS and NOLB, with 70,513 starts for FSS from April 2018 to March 2024 and 61,930 starts for NOLB from April 2019 to March 2024

The Labour Force Survey is not a large and robust enough sample to produce reliable estimates for smaller groups of the population. There has also recently been increased volatility in Labour Force Survey estimates, further information is available in the ONS Labour Force Survey: planned improvements and its reintroduction estimates methodology article.

The ONS Annual Population Survey (APS) provides a larger sample and more robust estimates for smaller groups of the population. The data in this report is drawn from the APS unless otherwise stated. The latest published APS estimates are for April 2023 to March 2024. Estimates are obtained from a sample survey and are therefore subject to some sampling variability.

Unlike the LFS estimates, ONS Annual Population Survey (APS) estimates have not been reweighted to new population estimates.

For further information, please see the ONS Impact of reweighting on Labour Force Survey key indicators article.                                                      

APS estimates remain accredited official statistics at this time. However, ONS are carrying out analysis to assess the impact of falling sample sizes on the quality of APS estimates.