Labour Market Statistics for 16 to 24 year olds: Scotland and the United Kingdom - January to December 2023
Statistics from the Annual Population Survey covering the period from January to December 2023.
This document is part of a collection
This publication contains the latest estimates of employment, unemployment and economic inactivity for 16 to 24 year olds. Estimates are for Scotland and the United Kingdom and cover the period January to December 2023. Data are sourced from the Annual Population Survey (APS), first released on 13 March 2024 by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The APS statistics included in this release are labelled official statistics in development.
Official statistics in development may be new or existing statistics, and will be tested with users, in line with the standards of trustworthiness, quality, and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.
The National Statistics badge has been removed from ONS APS publications, following its removal from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) in February 2024. This reflects the reduction in survey responses seen in the LFS which will have some impact on the APS and also that the APS does not reflect the most recent population weighting.
Key points
The latest ONS Annual Population Survey (APS) data are for January to December 2023. The latest estimates for 16 to 24 year olds in Scotland show the unemployment rate had increased slightly over the year, the employment rate had decreased, and the economic inactivity rate had increased.
In Scotland in January to December 2023:
- the estimated employment rate for 16 to 24 year olds was 55.9 per cent
- the estimated unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year olds was 9.9 per cent
- the estimated economic inactivity rate for 16 to 24 year olds was 37.9 per cent
Compared with the previous year:
- the employment rate for 16 to 24 year olds decreased by 2.0 percentage points
- the unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year olds increased by 0.1 percentage points
- the inactivity rate for 16 to 24 year olds increased by 2.1 percentage points
Compared with the United Kingdom as a whole:
- the employment rate for 16 to 24 year olds in Scotland was higher (55.9 per cent compared to 54.0 per cent)
- the unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year olds in Scotland was lower (9.9 per cent compared to 10.4 per cent)
- the inactivity rate for 16 to 24 year olds in Scotland was lower (37.9 per cent compared to 39.8 per cent)
Comparing men and women aged 16 to 24 years in Scotland:
- the estimated employment rate for men was lower than women (55.2 per cent compared to 56.7 per cent)
- the estimated unemployment rate for men was higher than women (11.4 per cent compared to 8.3 per cent)
- the estimated economic inactivity rate for men was lower than women (37.7 per cent compared to 38.2 per cent)
The estimated unemployment rate for women aged 16 to 24 years is from a small sample size. This estimate should be used with caution.
Estimates by local authority are not included in the commentary of this publication this quarter, although these estimates are provided in tables 8 and 9. This is due to increasing uncertainty around the survey estimates. While estimates remain robust for headline measures at Scotland level, an increasing number of estimates at local authority level are based on a small sample size which should be used with caution.
Contact
For enquiries about this publication please contact:
Labour Market Statistics,
Office of the Chief Economic Adviser
Telephone: 0131 244 6773,
E-mail: LMStats@gov.scot
For general enquiries about Scottish Government statistics please contact:
Office of the Chief Statistician
E-mail: statistics.enquiries@gov.scot
There is a problem
Thanks for your feedback