Estimates sourced from the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) Labour Force Survey for May to July 2024, compared with the quarter before, show that the unemployment rate in Scotland was 4.2%, down 0.5 percentage points over the quarter.

Scotland’s unemployment rate was slightly above the UK rate of 4.1%.

The estimates for May to July 2024 indicate that over the quarter the unemployment rate decreased, while the employment rate increased and the inactivity rate decreased.

The employment rate in Scotland was 74.2%, up 1.2 percentage points over the quarter. Scotland’s employment rate was below the UK rate of 74.8%.

The economic inactivity rate — the proportion of people aged 16 to 64 years who were not working and not seeking or available to work — in Scotland was 22.3%, down 0.8 percentage points over the quarter.

Scotland’s economic inactivity rate was above the UK rate of 21.9%.

Early seasonally adjusted estimates for August 2024 from HMRC Pay As You Earn Real Time Information indicate that there were 2.46 million payrolled employees in Scotland, an increase of 0.1% (2,000) compared with August 2023.

This compares with the UK where the number of payrolled employees had risen by 0.4% over the same period

Early seasonally adjusted estimates for August 2024 from HMRC Pay As You Earn Real Time Information indicate that median monthly pay for payrolled employees in Scotland was £2,443, an increase of 6% compared with August 2023.

This is lower than the growth in median monthly pay for the UK over the same period (6.2%).

In August 2024, the claimant count in Scotland was 115,400, an increase of 2,100 (1.9%) over the month and an increase of 7,000 (6.5%) over the year. The claimant count unemployment rate in August 2024 was 4%, compared with 4.7% for the UK as a whole.