This Fraser of Allander Institute report, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, explores local labour market pressures across Scotland by comparing the number of people who are out of work but would like to work with the availability of advertised jobs.
Going beyond traditional unemployment measures, the report focuses on “People Who Want to Work”. This is a broader group that includes not only those who are unemployed but also economically inactive people who say they would like a job if the right opportunities, support or circumstances were available. By comparing this potential labour supply with the number of advertised vacancies in each area, the report provides a fuller picture of where employment challenges may be greatest.
The analysis uses a combination of survey data, administrative data and online vacancy data to provide a fuller picture of labour supply and demand across Scotland.
Key findings include:
- Dundee City faces the most acute labour market pressures in Scotland, with around 15% of its working-age population wanting work and approximately 35 people competing for each advertised vacancy, far higher than anywhere else in the country. This pressure persists even when viewed across the wider Tayside region.
- Areas around major cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh look very different once commuting patterns are taken into account, with regional labour markets more balanced than local authority figures suggest.
- Over 60,000 parents across Scotland want to work but are not currently doing so, representing around 30% of the total “Want to Work” group, with significant variation in how parents are distributed across regions.
- There is no single Scottish labour market story. Place-based approaches to employability policy are essential, as local challenges differ markedly in both scale and nature.
The report is accompanied by an interactive dashboard.
Click here to access the Scottish Local Labour Market Dashboard.
Authors
Brodie is a Knowledge Exchange Associate at the Fraser of Allander Institute.
Hannah is a Fellow at the Fraser of Allander Institute. She specialises in applied social policy analysis with a focus on social security, poverty and inequality, labour supply, and immigration.
Allison is a Fellow at the Fraser of Allander Institute. She specialises in socioeconomic inequality, labour market dynamics, and the socioeconomic determinants of health.
Mairi is the Director of the Fraser of Allander Institute. Previously, she was the Deputy Chief Executive of the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the Head of National Accounts at the Scottish Government and has over a decade of experience working in different areas of statistics and analysis.
Emma Congreve is Principal Knowledge Exchange Fellow and Deputy Director at the Fraser of Allander Institute. Emma's work at the Institute is focussed on policy analysis, covering a wide range of areas of social and economic policy. Emma is an experienced economist and has previously held roles as a senior economist at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and as an economic adviser within the Scottish Government.
Dr Sam Grant
Dr Sam Grant is an applied economist who joined the Economics Department in April 2025 as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. His research draws on administrative and big data sources to study labour economics and the economics of crime. Sam previously worked at the University of Glasgow’s Urban Big Data Centre.