There was little comfort for the Scottish economy in today's labour market data. However, the picture for the UK labour market was a little more encouraging.
Unemployment (on the preferred ILO measure) rose during the quarter by 16,000 to 231,247 or 8.6%, higher than the UK rate of 8.4%. We are now nearly back to the recession peak of unemployment as the figure below indicates
Employment fell by 20,000 to take the Scottish jobs market to a position 3.9% below its pre-recession employment peak. This is not that much different from the trough of the recession after employment had fallen by -4.8%. The position in the UK on the jobs front is better, however. Net jobs were created during Oct-Dec, by 60,000 even though unemployment rose by 48,000. The inactivity rate also fell quite markedly in the UK whereas in Scotland there was only a slight fall.
All this suggests that with more encouraging data on the output front, the UK labour market might be beginning to turn round although unemployment may rise for a little while yet.
The same cannot be said for Scotland. When allowance is made for the growth of working population we see that the amount of jobs on offer compared to the available labour supply is now identical to the trough of the recession, as this chart shows
Unemployment will continue to rise in Scotland for some time yet. Moreover, our position compared to the other regions of the UK, which has also been weakening, may continue to worsen.
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