Employment figures in Scotland reach record high

Employment in Scotland reached a record level towards the end of 2015, according to the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics.

The number of Scots in work increased by 21,000 to 2,631,000, representing an employment rate of 74.9 per cent, which is the highest among the UK nations.

This is the highest rate since the economic downturn of 2008, when the rate was 74.6 per cent.

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The unemployment rate dropped 0.7 per cent to 5.4 per cent.

The figures were welcomed by the Scottish and UK Governments.

However low income think-tank the Resolution Foundation said the ‘jobs gap’ had been closed in most of England 15 months ago.

Policy analyst Conor D’Arcy said Scotland had reached “an important milestone” but more work was needed in a push toward full employment.

“It is crucial that the Scottish government works with employers to establish how to attract underrepresented groups and the economically inactive into the labour market.

“That’s particularly the case when those groups have significantly lower employment rates in Scotland than the rest of the UK, which is the case for people with disabilities and the lower skilled,” he said.

Grahame Smith, Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) General Secretary said: “Once again, men account for all the growth in jobs and most of the fall in unemployment.

“Given that there's no plausible explanation for the rapidly deteriorating relative position of women in the Scottish labour market, the STUC is concerned at the quality of the gender disaggregated statistics and would encourage ONS to reassess its processes in this respect.”