Public sector employment in Scotland: statistics for fourth quarter 2019

Statistics based on administrative records and surveys of individual public sector bodies carried out by the Scottish Government and the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is a snapshot of employment as at December 2019.


Table 3: Total devolved public sector employment by sector; Scotland, Headcount

Not Seasonally Adjusted

Total Devolved
Public Sector
NHS Civil Service Police and Fire Services2 Further Education Colleges3 Other Public Bodies3 Local Government2 Public Corporations
Q4 1999 474,500 129,800 14,500 - 15,700 8,600 296,000 9,000
Q4 2013 501,600 158,100 16,700 29,300 13,600 13,800 248,000 22,000
Q4 2014 503,700 160,500 17,300 28,600 13,900 14,100 247,000 22,000
Q4 2015 503,400 161,400 16,800 28,200 13,900 15,300 245,000 22,000
Q4 2016 502,000 162,300 16,800 27,900 13,900 15,400 243,000 23,000
Q4 2017 504,300 163,400 17,300 27,600 13,900 15,500 243,000 23,000
Q4 2018 r 496,900 163,800 18,200 27,800 14,000 16,000 249,000 8,000
Q4 2019 505,200 165,900 20,600 28,100 14,200 16,100 252,000 8,000
Change on year to:
Q4 2019 8,300 2,060 2,420 260 210 130 3,090 130
% change on year:
Q4 2019 1.7% 1.3% 13.3% 0.9% 1.5% 0.8% 1.2% 1.6%

r = due to minor revisions to data

Notes:

1. Employment figures have been rounded to the nearest hundred, with the exception of local government and public corporation figures which are rounded to the nearest thousand; change on year rounded to the nearest ten; percentages are based on unrounded figures. "SCT02200304961-" denotes blank entries. Totals may not equal the sum of individual parts due to rounding.

2. Police and Fire Reform: From Q2 2013 Police and Fire Services have been reclassified as central government rather than local government (as their predecessors were). All police staff are employed by the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) whether deployed with the SPA or with the Police Service of Scotland.

3. Information for further education colleges in Scotland is based on collected information from Q4 2010. The method used to create the back series is detailed in the background notes of this publication.

4. For further information on interpreting these series, see the series reclassification guide or background notes of the publication.

Contact

Email: lmstats@gov.scot

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