Scottish Employer Perspectives Survey 2021

Employer characteristics

The population of employers for the Scottish EPS 2021 included all establishments in Scotland that had at least two people working at them (including working proprietors) and was drawn from commercial data supplier, Market Location. An "establishment" is a single site of an organisation, meaning interviews were carried out with an individual at each local office (rather than a single "head office" location with a respondent answering on behalf of the whole organisation). This is in recognition of the influence that local labour markets have on skills issues, and that skills issues are typically felt most acutely at the site level. This mirrored the establishment-based approach adopted in previous UK Employer Skills Surveys (ESS) and UK Employer Perspectives Surveys (EPS). The terms 'establishment', 'site' and 'employer' are used interchangeably through the report.

Figure 1 shows the profile of employers and of employment by size for this population. Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures estimate that in March 2021 there were 149,205 establishments in Scotland employing around 2.42 million people between them.^[2]

The Scottish employer population is predominantly made up of small establishments: half of employers have fewer than 5 staff (50%) and a further two fifths have between 5 and 24 staff (39%). However, these smaller employers employ just 8% of the workforce and 24% of the workforce respectively. Employers with 100 or more staff make up 2% of establishments but employ 44% of the workforce.

Source: ONS Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR), March 2021.

Using a broad six-sector breakdown which consists of Primary Sector and Utilities, Manufacturing, Construction, Trade, Accommodation and Transport, Business and Other Services, and Non-market services; the largest sectors in the Scottish economy in terms of number of establishments are Trade, Accommodation and Transport, and Business and Other Services (33% of all establishments each); the smallest is Manufacturing (5%).^[3]

In terms of employment, Non-market Services was the largest sector, employing 31% of the total workforce, despite only making up 12% of establishments. It was followed by Trade, Accommodation and Transport, and Business and Other Services (each 26% of the workforce).

Source: ONS Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR), March 2021.

Survey data show that 19% of establishments that have already been in business for over 12 months have increased their number of employees in the past 12 months prior to interview;^[4] 18% saw a decrease in staff numbers.^[5] 62% have broadly remained the same size.

81% of employers in Scotland have been in operation for more than 10 years, with 1% operating for less than a year at the time of interview.