Public Sector Employment In Scotland Statistics For 4th Quarter 2021

Statistics based on administrative records and surveys of individual public sector bodies carried out by the Scottish Government and the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is a snapshot of employment as at December 2021.


Table 3: Total devolved public sector employment by sector; Scotland, Headcount

Not Seasonally Adjusted

Quarter Total Devolved
Public Sector
NHS Civil Service Police and Fire Services [note 2] Further Education Colleges [note 3] Other Public Bodies [note 3] Local Government [note 2] Public Corporations
Q4 1999 474,300 129,800 14,500 - 15,700 8,500 296,000 9,000
Q4 2015 503,200 161,400 16,800 28,200 13,900 15,200 245,000 22,000
Q4 2016 501,900 162,300 16,800 27,900 13,900 15,300 243,000 23,000
Q4 2017 502,700 163,400 17,300 27,600 13,900 15,400 242,000 23,000
Q4 2018 496,800 163,800 18,200 27,800 14,000 15,900 249,000 8,000
Q4 2019 504,900 165,900 20,600 28,100 14,200 15,900 252,000 8,000
Q4 2020 518,700 172,600 21,600 28,200 13,400 15,600 254,000 14,000
Q4 2021 534,400 180,700 24,400 28,100 13,200 15,300 259,000 13,000
Change on year to:
Q4 2021 15,660 8,080 2,810 -140 -110 -390 5,560 -140
% change on year:
Q4 2021 3.0% 4.7% 13.0% -0.5% -0.9% -2.5% 2.2% -1.0%

Notes:

1. Employment figures have been rounded to the nearest hundred, with the exception of local government and public corporation figures which are rounded to the nearest thousand; change on year rounded to the nearest ten; percentages are based on unrounded figures. "-" denotes blank entries. Totals may not equal the sum of individual parts due to rounding.

2. Police and Fire Reform: From Q2 2013 Police and Fire Services have been reclassified as central government rather than local government (as their predecessors were).

All police staff are employed by the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) whether deployed with the SPA or with the Police Service of Scotland.

3. Information for further education colleges in Scotland is based on collected information from Q4 2010. The method used to create the back series is detailed in the background notes of this publication.

4. For further information on interpreting these series, see the series reclassification guide or background notes of the publication.

Contact

Email: LMStats@gov.scot

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