Unemployment in Scotland remains below UK rate

Scotland's employment rate was down but remains above 75%

Unemployment in Scotland remained at a lower rate than the UK in the first three months of this year, according to new figures.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported an estimated 86,000 adults - or 3.1% - were seeking work between January and March, compared with 3.9% for the UK as a whole.

Scotland's figure was 0.2% lower than the previous quarter.

The rate of employment in Scotland was down, but remains above 75%.

The figures indicate Scotland has not seen the same flow of people into the workforce that can be seen in England's figures.

Economic inactivity in Scotland - a measure of people unavailable for work - has risen (up 1.4% in the quarter, to 22.2%) and returned to a higher level than the UK as a whole (21%).

• Record numbers not working due to ill health

• Unemployment in Scotland falls to record low

The figures released on Tuesday also give a measure of average pay change across the UK.

In January to March, pay including bonuses was 5.8% higher than the start of last year.

But after taking price inflation into account, the real value of those average earnings was down by 3%, and down by more for public sector workers than for those in the private sector.

Wellbeing Economy Secretary Neil Gray welcomed the figures.

He said: "We are working to create more high-quality jobs and increasing the number of employees earning at least the real living wage.

"The Scottish government is committed to supporting more people into work - including parents, disabled people and those with health and caring responsibilities - through employability and skills support, high-quality early learning and school age childcare provision, as well as improving access to flexible working."

Mr Gray added recent ONS data revealed a target to increase the employment rate of disabled people to 50% by 2023 had been met a year early.

He said figures showed 50.7% were in work in 2022.

'Resilient labour market'

Scottish Secretary Alister Jack said: "The unemployment rate in Scotland remains near record lows and the labour market continues to be resilient in the face of significant economic challenges.

"The UK government is focused on halving inflation, reducing debt and growing the economy.

"That includes investing more than £2.2bn across Scotland through our ambitious levelling up agenda to create jobs and opportunities, and boost trade and investment."

The monthly job figures these days provoke more questions than they provide answers.

With the economy in such a weak state over recent months, it's hard to understand the resilience of the labour market in maintaining exceptionally low unemployment rates.

While the UK job seeking rate ticks up, Scotland's has remained low. Part of the reason may be that there is less job seeking because workers have hunkered down in the jobs they already have, rather than taking a risk on leaving and searching out a new one.

That search at some point over three months would put them in the ranks of the unemployed, even if it didn't last long.

The Royal Bank of Scotland recruitment survey suggests that job movement has slowed, and also that recruiters have hunkered down and cut back on activity while there has been so much economic uncertainty.

The other big question, being asked loudly by the UK government, is how to fill more than a million vacancies UK-wide without drawing even more people in to Britain from other countries.

Their answers focus on the economic inactivity rate - adults aged up to 65 who are not available for work, mainly because they're caring for family, or in full-time studies or they have long-term health problems.

Those numbers with long-term sickness have reached a record high across the UK. Why? Maybe long Covid. Maybe waiting for an NHS procedure that could regain one's mobility. Maybe because it's easier to sign yourself off work than it used to be.

In Scotland, the long-term sick have reached 253,000 - similar levels to those in 2005. The numbers back then may have reflected the legacy of heavy industries before those people reached 65.

But we don't know. And we don't have comparable figures going back more than 20 years.

The trend in Scotland took that number below 200,000 eight years ago, and then they began to rise again. In the year before the pandemic struck, they averaged 218,000. So there has been a significant rise since then, of 35,000.