High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Employment Rate
Scotland has the highest employment rate of the 4 countries in the United Kingdom. The employment rate in Scotland has been steadily increasing since the mid 1990's, reaching a peak of 77.0 per cent during the second calendar quarter of 2007 (Apr-Jun). Scotland has an employment rate of 73.9 per cent for the latest calendar quarter (Jul-Sep 2009). This compares to an employment rate of 72.8 per cent in England (the country with the second highest employment rate within the UK) for the same quarter. Thus the gap between Scotland and England's employment rates is currently 1.0 percentage point. In the third quarter of 2008 Scotland had an employment rate of 76.3 per cent and England had an employment rate of 74.6 per cent, giving a gap of 1.7 percentage points. So the gap has narrowed by 0.6 percentage points - a maintaining of Scotland's relative position.
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Source: Labour Force Survey, Seasonally Adjusted data, Office for National Statistics
The employment rate in Scotland using the European age definition (15-64) in 2008 was 72.1% which is 0.3 percentage points lower than the previous year. Compared to the other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Scotland has maintained its position as having the 10th highest employment rate. Between 2007 and 2008 the gap in employment rates between Scotland and the country with the 5th highest rate (Netherlands in 2008 and Sweden in 2007) increased from 3.3 percentage points in 2007 to 4.0 percentage points in 2008.
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Source: OECD, Annual Population Survey
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