Income and employment: availability of work

Long-term employment trends

 In 2023, 76% of men and 73.0% of women were in employment. The gap between male and female employment rates has narrowed over time. Chart 1 shows employment rates for men and women aged 16-64 in Scotland between 1993 and 2023 (May-July each year). 

Male employment rates fell during the pandemic and have remained flat since then. Female employment recovered briefly after 2020 but fell back in 2023. 

There are regional differences in the availability of work

One way of measuring this is the 'vacancy density', expressed as the number of vacancies per adults on the claimant count unemployment measure. (The claimant count is the number of people actively seeking work and claiming unemployment benefit).

• There were 1.5 vacancies for every 1 person counted as claimant unemployed for Scotland as a whole (August to October 2022).
• There was substantial variation across Scotland, from 0.5 vacancies for every 1 unemployed person in East Ayrshire, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire to more than 3 vacancies for every unemployed person in the City of Edinburgh and Orkney Islands. (Chart 2). 

 Caveats to interpreting vacancy density data by local authority include:

• Local authorities may not be match up well with 'real' labour markets - commuters can compete for jobs across local authority boundaries, especially travelling into cities, while some local authorities (eg. Highland) are divided into several effective Travel to Work areas by geography and distance.
• Older adults (50+) and younger adults (16-24) are likely to travel shorter distances to work
• The volume of job postings doesn't tell us about the types of jobs on offer - and not all these jobs will be accessible to everyone (e.g. through skills or experience, health or caring responsibilities, distance or transport costs). 
• Vacancy density figures present jobs per unemployed but other groups (the already employed and those on incapacity benefit) mighty also be looking for work:
• Some people in work and claiming Universal Credit are now expected to increase their earnings through increasing the hours they work in their current job or taking on a second job
• some people on incapacity benefits who might be expected to work in a fully employed economy. 

• Beatty et al (2022) estimate that taking the above into account the real level of unemployment in Scotland was 224,000, translating to a job density of 0.7 rather than the 1.5 figure given above, with fewer vacancies than people who might potentially work in Scotland in 2022.  

Implications

Based on the current data on availability of work, and what we know about the links between income, employment and health, it will be important to:

• ensure there is sufficient work for the population in all regions within Scotland
• ensure people who are unemployed have sufficient income to maintain their health and wellbeing
• continue to monitor trends in the labour market closely, using a range of indicators, to understand the implications for public health