August marked the end to summer and the ramp up in political mud-slinging in the run up to the Scottish independence referendum. In all this distraction you may have missed some of the updates on the state of employment in Scotland.
Recent government statistics for Q2 2014 said there were 2,614,00 people in employment in Scotland. An increase of 3.7% for the same period in 2013. However more detail will reveal that this growth is being created in the private sector which has long been prophesised to compensate for the losses in public sector. Certainly in recent months this prophecy has held true.
During Q2 there were 544,100 people employed in the public sector in Scotland, a decrease of 36,100 from the same period last year. Notably this is the lowest level of employment in the public sector since 1999, when data collection began. The ‘private knight’ on the other hand managed to grow during the period by 129,700 to now employ 2,069,900 people living in Scotland.
Overall this gives us some good news, the corporate market rose to the challenge and Public sector remains hugely important on the job front; accounting for 20.8% of total employment.
In total there were 2,614,00 people employed in Scotland during Q2 2014. During the same period s1jobs received a total of 1,763,342 unique visitors which could account for as much as 67% of said working population.
On the next update I will break down the detail to show s1 users where the growth and pitfalls seem to be. Until next time as my moms’ mom would say “I wish you an itchy left palm and the silver that’s prophesised to follow.”
