High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Tuesday 21st May 2013
Employment Rate (Based on population aged 16-64)
Scotland has the highest employment rate of the four countries in the United Kingdom. From the mid 1990s, Scotland’s employment rate was steadily increasing, reaching a peak of 74.9 per cent during the second calendar quarter of 2007 (Apr-Jun), although over the past three years, Scotland’s employment rate, along with the other countries of the UK, has been at a lower level as a result of the economic conditions. During the first three quarters of 2010 the employment rate in England was higher than in Scotland.
In the latest calendar quarter (Jan-Mar, 2013), Scotland has an employment rate of 71.8 per cent, making it the highest of all UK countries. This compares to an employment rate of 71.6 per cent in England for the same quarter (country with the next highest rate).
Last year in Q1 2012 Scotland had an employment rate of 71.4 per cent (highest) and England had an employment rate of 70.8 per cent (second highest), giving a gap of 0.6 percentage points in favour of Scotland (based on unrounded figures).
So over the year the gap has shifted by 0.4 percentage points to Scotland’s detriment. This is lower than the threshold value of +/- 1.0 percentage point required to show change.
Please note that the 0.4 percentage point shift is based on unrounded figures.
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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 2011 was 69.5% which is 0.3 percentage points lower than the previous year. When compared against 35 OECD countries, Scotland was ranked 13th highest in terms of employment rates. Between 2010 and 2011 the gap in employment rates between Scotland and the country with the 5th highest rate (Denmark in 2010 and now Sweden in 2011) increased from 3.7 percentage points in 2010 to 4.6 percentage points in 2011.
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Source: OECD, Annual Population Survey
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