From the Fraser of
Allander Institute (FAI) and Scottish Centre for Employment Research (SCER)
The latest FAI/SCER Labour Market Trends report summarises
recent developments in the Scottish labour market.
Overall, the Scottish labour market continues to hold up relatively
well despite Scotland’s economy growing much more slowly than the UK as a
whole. That being said, employment has slipped back over the year and the
continued rise in economic inactivity remains a source of concern.
In the report, we also discuss the uncertainty that
surrounds the labour market statistics for Scotland.
The width of confidence
intervals around the headline estimates are large, making any interpretation of
key trends and developments a challenge. The current best estimate of
unemployment levels in Scotland of 135,000 has range of uncertainty (at the 95%
level) of 22,000. If government are serious about understanding long-term labour
market issues and devising appropriate policy responses then it is vital that
the quality of the statistics be improved.
The two featured articles in this month’s report examine the
recent rise in inactivity in Scotland with a focus upon what types of
inactivity and age groups are driving the increase and the resilience of local
authority areas in Scotland to recession. In this second report, we compare employment
levels in Scotland’s local authorities now with where they were back when
Scotland was at its peak prior to the 2008 financial crisis. We find that based
on the most recent data around half of Scottish local authority areas have not
made up the jobs lost over this period.
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