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Scotland's Chief Statistician today published statistics from the Annual Population Survey (APS).

The APS is a boosted annual version of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and is the official source of many labour market and lifelong learning indicators for Scotland and local authority areas in Scotland.

The publication provides an annual summary of the data covering key indicators such as employment rates, unemployment rates, rates of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) and qualification breakdowns.

It is important to note that the APS data for 2008 covers the calendar year, January to December, so does not necessarily take into account the full extent of the economic downturn as Scotland officially entered recession in the fourth quarter of 2008. Some of the main findings are:

Employment

• In Scotland the working age employment rate was 75.6 per cent in 2008, down 0.4 percentage points over the year consistent with the economic contraction
• There is considerable variation in employment rates across Scotland's local authorities. In 2008, the employment rates varied from 66.4 per cent in Glasgow City to 88.0 per cent in the Shetland Islands
• Nearly two thirds of all local authorities (20 in total) experienced a reduction in employment rates between 2007 and 2008. Those most affected were West Dunbartonshire, Orkney Islands, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire and Argyll & Bute; with all seeing employment rates reduce by more than two percentage points over the year
• The gap in participation between the best and worst performing areas in Scotland has generally reduced over the last few years. Over the year, the difference decreased by 1.5 percentage points
• Between 2007 and 2008 the gap in employment rates between Scotland and the OECD country with the 5th highest rate (Netherlands in 2008 and Sweden in 2007) increased from 3.3 percentage points to 4.0 percentage points in 2008
• The number of migrants (non-UK born) in employment increased by 17,800 between 2006 and 2007 and the proportion of migrants of working age in employment increased by 0.4 percentage points. The number of UK born people in employment increased by 5,100 over the year to 2007 and the working age employment rate for those born in the UK increased by 0.3 percentage points

Unemployment

• A total of 130,300 people aged 16 or over were estimated to be unemployed in 2008. This was 4.9 per cent of the economically active population, an increase from 4.7 per cent in 2007
• The majority of local authorities have also seen an increase in their unemployment rate over the past year. Those showing the largest increase in unemployment between 2007 and 2008 are North Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire and Stirling, all up more than 0.5 percentage points over the year
  

Economic Inactivity

• In 2008, 20.4 per cent of the working age population in Scotland were economically inactive, an increase of 0.3 percentage points over the year
• Over the year, economic inactivity rates increased in 18 of Scotland's local authorities

Education & Training

• Between 2007 and 2008 the proportion of 16 to 19 year olds estimated to be not in education, employment or training (NEET) decreased by 0.3 percentage points from 12.2 per cent to 11.9 per cent. However, this change is not statistically significant.
• Proxy measure of adults with severe literacy and numeracy problems
• Between 2007 and 2008 the percentage of working age adults with SCQF Level 4 qualifications or below (General Standard Grade or equivalent) decreased by 1.3 percentage points (from 16.1 per cent to 14.8 per cent)

Official statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff.

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