Scotland's Labour Market Overview: December 2023

Data and methodology

Where can labour market data for Scotland be accessed

The data contained in this release can be obtained from the following sources:

Further labour market information for Scotland from the ONS Annual Population Survey is also published on Nomis

ONS Labour Force Survey

Due to the increased uncertainty around the ONS Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates, ONS published an alternative experimental series of estimates of employment, unemployment and economic inactivity on 24 October 2023 for the UK only. The experimental adjusted estimates were derived using growth rates from Pay as You Earn Real Time Information and the Claimant Count for the periods from May to July 2023 onwards. These experimental estimates have been produced by ONS to provide a more holistic view of the state of the labour market while the LFS estimates are uncertain.

On 2 November 2023, ONS published a Labour Force Survey: planned improvements and its reintroduction note which highlighted that experimental adjusted employment, unemployment and inactivity estimates by region would be published on 14 November 2023. The experimental adjusted estimates covered the period from May to July 2023 onwards.

On 5 December 2023, ONS published an updated statement on their development plan in which they stated that they would continue to publish the adjusted experimental labour market series in place of the Labour Force Survey estimates as part of their December release but plan to reintroduce the LFS estimates in January 2024.

ONS have published “Using administrative data to create headline labour market figures” article explaining how the experimental adjusted series has been produced. This adjusted series is classed as Official Statistics in Development.

ONS Annual Population Survey

The APS combines results from the ONS Labour Force Survey (LFS) with the English, Welsh and Scottish LFS boosts. This provides a larger annual sample of households. Compared with the quarterly LFS, the annual data is statistically more robust. Estimates for local areas and smaller populations (including those aged 16 to 24 years) are more accurate as a result.

The APS is the Accredited Official Statistics source for labour market indicators by region and smaller groups of the population.

The population totals used for the latest APS estimates use projected growth rates from Real Time Information data for UK, EU and non-EU populations based on 2021 patterns. The total population used for the APS therefore does not take into account any changes in migration, birth rates, death rates, and so on, since June 2021, so level estimates may be under- or over-estimating the true values and should be used with caution. Estimates of rates will, however, be robust.

Labour Market Transformation

On 2 November 2023, ONS published an article on the Labour Force Survey: planned improvements and its reintroduction. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has been facing the challenge of falling response rates for household surveys, as have other comparable countries. ONS have therefore developed a comprehensive plan to address these concerns and to re-introduce the Labour Force Survey. The Annual Population Survey is partly composed of Labour Force Survey estimates.

ONS are transforming the LFS. They are publishing Labour market transformation articles providing updates on the transformation of labour market statistics.

ONS also welcome any feedback on this latest update and their plans. Please email them at labour.market.transformation@ons.gov.uk to tell them what you think.

Other sources

This publication also contains HMRC PAYE Real Time Information (RTI) on median monthly earnings and payrolled employees. These are classed as Official Statistics in Development.

The ONS have also published experimental Claimant Count estimates which have also been included within this publication. These are also classed as Official Statistics in Development.

HMRC RTI

This release covers people paid through the HMRC’s Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system where their pay is reported through the Real Time Information (RTI) system.

Information presented in this release are experimental monthly estimates of the number of payrolled employees and their median earnings. It includes UK and geographical regions (NUTS1) early estimates of payrolled employment and median pay for the most recent month.

Statistics in this release are based on people who are employed in at least one job paid through HMRC’s PAYE system and the monthly estimates reflect the average for each day of the calendar month.

The publication and background information can be accessed on the ONS website.

Claimant count

The Claimant Count is not a measure of unemployment and changes in the Claimant Count will not be wholly because of changes in the number of people who are unemployed. It is a measure of the number of people claiming benefit principally for the reason of being unemployed:

• Between January 1971 (when comparable estimates start) and September 1996, it is an estimate of the number of people who would have claimed unemployment-related benefits if Jobseeker’s Allowance had existed at that time.
• Between October 1996 and April 2013, the Claimant Count is a count of the number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA).
• Between May 2013 and October 2013, the Claimant Count includes all claimants of Universal Credit (including those who were in work) as well as all JSA claimants.
• From November 2013, the Claimant Count includes all out of work Universal Credit claimants as well as all JSA claimants.
• From April 2015 onwards the claimant count includes those claimants of Universal Credit who are required to search for work, i.e. within the Searching for Work conditionality regime as defined by the Department for Work & Pensions as well as all JSA claimants.

Information for November 2023 is for the number of claimants as at 9 November 2023.

In addition to the Claimant Count, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) publishes quarterly Alternative Claimant Count statistics. These measure the number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits by modelling what the Claimant Count would have looked like if Universal Credit had been in place since 2013. Further information on the Alternative Claimant Count can be found at:

DWP Alternative Claimant Count statistics publication

Adzuna online job adverts

Adzuna is an online job search engine who collate information from thousands of different sources in the UK. These range from direct employers’ websites to recruitment software providers to traditional job boards thus providing a comprehensive view of current online job adverts. Adzuna is working in partnership with ONS and have made data available for analysis including online advert job descriptions, job titles, job locations, job categories and salary information. The data provided are a point-in-time estimate of all job adverts indexed in Adzuna’s job search engine during the point of data extraction. For more information see:

Online job advert estimates publication, ONS

Reliability of estimates

Estimates from the ONS Annual Population Survey for October 2004 to September 2005 through to October 2022 to September 2023 are presented. For the latest time period, the sample size is around 9,000 households in Scotland.

The ONS Labour Force Survey (LFS) and Annual Population Survey (APS) are sample surveys. As such, these estimates are subject to an associated sampling error that decreases as the sample size increases. It is the nature of sampling variability that the smaller a group is the (proportionately) less precise an estimate is. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) have published a detailed guidance note on this. Shading is one method used by ONS to indicate where estimates should be used with caution. The Accredited Official Statistics marking for the APS reflects the larger sample size for headline estimates of Labour Market indicators for smaller groups of the population for Scotland.

Employees who were furloughed between April 2020 and the end of September 2021 were classed as employed, but temporarily away from work. This is consistent with labour market definitions outlined by ONS.

Confidence intervals

Confidence limits can be used to assess the range of values that the true value lies between. 95 per cent confidence intervals for rates are included in all tables and charts.

What does the 95 per cent confidence limit mean?

If, for example, we have an APS estimate and confidence limit of 63 per cent ± 0.27, this means that 19 times out of 20 we would expect the true rate to lie between 62.73 per cent and 63.27 per cent. Only in exceptional circumstances (1 in 20 times) would we expect the true rate to be outside the confidence interval around the APS estimate. Thus the smaller the confidence limits, the more reliable the estimate is.

The confidence limits use a design factor of 1, which may not be likely in some cases but given the lack of further information an average design factor of 1 is assumed to be reasonable. Further information on estimating confidence intervals can be found in the LFS user guidance.

Statistical significance

Statistical significance is based on 95 per cent Confidence Intervals. Statistical significance means that the change was large enough that it is unlikely to have resulted only from the variable nature of the sample.

Quality assurance

Annual Population Survey microdata is collected and produced by the ONS. Scottish Government statisticians receive early access to perform quality assurance checks.

When producing estimates for this publication, Scottish Government statisticians conduct in-depth quality assurance.

These checks include:

• analysis of the sample size obtained in the collection process
• production of estimates from the microdata using statistical software and relevant coding
• cross checking of coding between team members

Further checks relate to:

• crosschecking historical time series data with previously published results
• benchmarking the results against other relevant data sources