The Scottish Government

Title

Participation (employment). Purpose Target.

Associated Target

To maintain our position on labour market participation as the top performing country in the UK and close the gap with the top 5 OECD economies by 2017.

Brief Description

Increased labour market participation is a key driver of economic growth. Scotland's labour market performance is currently strong compared to its historical position, with Scotland having the highest employment rate of the countries of the UK. The first part of the target is to see Scotland maintain this position.

However, Scotland's employment rate currently lags behind those of many of our competitor nations. The second part of the target is for Scotland to narrow the gap between employment rates in Scotland, and the top 5 OECD countries (which are currently Iceland, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, and New Zealand).

Strategic Objective(s) to Which Indicator Relates

This indicator informs progress in relation to all five Strategic Objectives:

Wealthier and Fairer;
Healthier;
Safer and Stronger;
Smarter; and
Greener.

More Detailed Definitions

Definitions of Keywords

Participation is defined as covering those in employment. This will be measured using employment rates. Employment rates measure the proportion of the working age population in employment. For comparisons within the UK, the working age population is defined as females aged 16-59, and males aged 16-64.

Employment is defined as people who are employees, self employed, on government training programmes and unpaid family workers.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development ( OECD) is an international organisation helping governments tackle the economic, social and governance challenges of a globalised economy. 30 countries are currently members of the OECD - however, this is likely to increase in future years. For comparisons with the OECD the working age population is defined as those aged 15-64.

Evidence Source

Progress against the first part of the target ( To maintain our position on labour market participation as the top performing country in the UK) will be measured using the Labour Force Survey ( LFS). Data will be compared using the same 3 month period as is used for the baseline figure.LFS data are collected by the Office for National Statistics ( ONS) and are available from 1992.

Data for comparing Scotland's performance against the OECD countries are taken from the OECD web site based on the European Labour Force Survey data used in the Employment Outlook publication. The Scottish data are sourced from the Annual Population Survey ( APS) and the UK data are taken from the Eurostat website.

Baseline and Past Trends

To maintain our position on labour market participation as the top performing country in the UK:

Baseline: The baseline for this element of the target will be Scotland's position compared to the other countries of the UK in 2007 quarter 2 (covering April-June 2007). In quarter 2, Scotland had the highest employment rate of the UK countries. The ranking of the UK countries, and their employment rates are shown in table 1.

Table 1: Employment rates, and ranking, for UK countries, 2007 Q2 (April-June)

Source: Labour Force Survey, Apr-Jun Quarters, Seasonally adjusted

Trends: Chart 1 presents the trend in employment rates for the UK countries over the period 1998-2007.

Chart 1: Employment Rates (for population aged 16-59/64) for UK countries, 1998-2007

Source: Office of National Statistics - Labour Force Survey; April - June Quarters, Seasonally adjusted

Close the gap with the top 5 OECD economies by 2017:

Baseline: The baseline for this element of the target will be Scotland's employment rate relative to our competitors in the OECD in 2007. These data will not be available until Autumn 2008. The most recent data - for 2006 - are shown in Chart 2, which compares Scotland's employment rate against the countries of the OECD in 2001 and 2006.

Chart 2: Employment rates (for population aged 15-64) for OECD countries

Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Eurostat, Office for National Statistics Annual Population Survey

In 2006, Scotland was ranked 9 ^th out of 31 countries. The top 5 countries in 2006 were Iceland, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, and New Zealand. Scotland's employment rate (as the proportion of the population aged 15-64) in 2006 was 72.2%. New Zealand's rate was 75.2% - this results in a 3 percentage point gap.

In 2001, Scotland was ranked 11 ^th out of 31, with an employment rate of 69.6%. Sweden, with an employment rate of 75.2% was ranked 5 ^th - the gap between Scotland and Sweden was therefore 5.6 percentage points.

Methodology

This indicator is calculated as the number of working age people in employment divided by the total number of working age people. Working age is defined as males aged 16-64 and females aged 16-59 when looking at the comparisons within the UK. For International comparisons the working age population is defined as 15-64.

The 95% confidence interval for the rolling 3 monthly estimates is approximately plus or minus 1.3 percentage points.

The 95% confidence interval for the employment rate estimate from the APS is approximately plus or minus 0.5 percentage points.

Data Ownership and Quality Assurance

The Labour Force Survey and the Annual Population Survey are National Statistics Publications.

Publication of Data

Headline data from the Labour Force Survey are published each month on a rolling 3 month basis by the Office for National Statistics.

The Labour Market Statistics First Release Historical Supplement published by ONS contains trend data to measure employment rates by country - Table 18. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/OnlineProducts/LMS_FR_HS.asp

For international comparisons the source used for the Scottish data is the Annual Population Survey. Data from the Annual Population Survey ( APS) are published on a quarterly basis by the Office for National Statistics. A publication of headline figures from the APS is published in June each year by the Scottish Government covering the period January to December of the previous year.

Data are also published on the National Online Manpower Information System ( NOMIS) website ( www.nomisweb.co.uk)

European data are published on the OECD website and the Eurostat website.

http://www.oecd.org/topicstatsportal/0,3398,en_2825_30453906_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page?_pageid=1073,46587259&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&p_product_code=KS-QA-07-021