Labour Market - Fraser of Allander Institute Blog

Today’s employment figures: Scottish unemployment rate rises to 4.1%

New labour market data were released this morning showing that the Scottish unemployment rate (16+) is now 4.1%, and the employment rate (16-64) is now 74.3%.

This means that there has been an increase in unemployment of 0.8%-points in the three months to August, and that the employment rate fell by 1.4%-points over the same period.

To put this into context, the increase in the unemployment rate is the biggest three month increase in four years.

This means that there are 20,000 more people unemployed in Scotland, and nearly 60,000 fewer people in employment, than earlier in the year.

At the same time the UK unemployment rate rose slightly to 3.9% (up 0.1% pts relative to the three months before) and the employment rate fell slightly (down 0.2%-pts) to 75.9%

In this blog we run through the main conclusions from these data.

Today’s labour market data in brief…

New data on the health of Scotland’s labour market was released this morning. These provide an update on key indicators like unemployment and employment. In this blog we highlight the key features of these data and highlight some interesting trends.

Data on Scotland’s economic growth- what’s the difference?

One of the interesting features of the Scottish economic data landscape is that both the Scottish Government and the ONS produce their own separate measures of economic growth for Scotland.

Recently we got some new National Accounts data from the Scottish Government as well as new data from the ONS for GVA growth across the devolved nations and English regions.

With two different datasets on economic growth in Scotland being released relatively close to one another, it’s possible to see whether or not they tell the same story, and if not, why not?

Labour Market Update

This blog summarises some of the key insights from the data released this morning.

Today’s labour market data for Scotland show a slight increase in the unemployment rate this quarter of 0.1% points to 4%, although the unemployment rate is still down 0.8% points over the year. Further, while the employment rate is unchanged over the past quarter, it has grown by 1.6% points over the last year.

These data and changes over the past year and quarter are summarised in the table below for different parts of the UK (green shading indicates an improvement for that measure and red shading a worsening of performance on that measure). Scotland continues to have an employment rate above the average for the UK, and an unemployment rate below the average for the UK.

How are Scottish earnings performing relative to the UK?

In recent months we have seen relatively strong headline labour market indicators in both Scotland and the UK.

But this only tells part of the story. The types of jobs being created, the levels of security and prospects they provide, and crucially the earnings received are just as important.

UK data has shown that the strong growth in employment has been accompanied by a squeeze in real earnings.

Data on earnings for Scotland is much harder to come by. But this week we had the latest Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) publication which gives some insight into earnings in Scotland.

This blog summarises the headline results for April 2017 and what they could be telling us about the health of the Scottish labour market.