Labour Market Statistics for Scotland by Disability: January to December 2022

Types of work

Key metrics

In January to December 2022, disabled people who were in employment were more likely to:

• work part-time
• not be in contractually secure work
• be underemployed

than non-disabled people who were in employment.

However, the proportion of disabled people who were not in contractually secure work (6.3 per cent) was similar to the proportion of non-disabled people (5.6 per cent).  Whereas nearly one in three disabled people were working part-time (31.5 per cent) compared to nearly one in four non-disabled people (23.5 per cent). The proportion of hours based underemployment for disabled people was also larger than the proportion for non-disabled people (7.6 and 5.7 per cent respectively).

Contractually secure work is defined as employees who are employed on a permanent basis.

Underemployment refers to those who are in work but would prefer to work more hours in their current job (at their basic rate of pay), in an additional job or in a new job with longer hours to replace their current job.

Chart 5: Employment by disability and types of work, Scotland, 2022

Source: Annual Population Survey, January to December 2022, ONS

Industry

For both disabled and non-disabled people aged 16 to 64 years in employment, a larger proportion work in public administation, education and health in comparison to other industries.  However, the proportion of disabled people is over 4.0 percentage points larger than the proportion of non-disabled people (34.0 and 38.1 per cent respectively).

The proportion of disabled people working in distribution, hotels and restaurants, and transport and communication is also larger than the equivalent proportion of non-disabled people working in those industries.

Chart 6: Employment by disability and industry, Scotland 2022

Source: Annual Population Survey, January to December 2022, ONS

Employer size

In January to December 2022, a higher proportion of disabled people (48.9 per cent) in employment worked for small-sized employers than non-disabled people (46.4 per cent).

Over a quarter of non-disabled people in employment worked for large-sized employers (26.0 per cent) compared with under a quarter of disabled people (23.9 per cent). A similar number of people in employment, both disabled and non-disabled, worked for medium-sized employers.

Employer size is self-reported and may not be consistent with estimates of employer size reported from business sources.

Chart 7: Employment by disability and employer size, Scotland, 2022

Source: Annual Population Survey, January to December 2022, ONS
Note:

Small-Sized employers have less than 50 employees
Medium-Sized employers have between 50 and 249 employees
Large-Sized employers have 250 or more employees
Employers of unknown size have between 50 and 499 employees