Public sector employment in Scotland: statistics for third quarter 2020

4. Reserved Public Sector Employment in Scotland; Headcount (see Table 4)

The number of people employed in the reserved public sector in September 2020 was 54,300, which is 2,720 (4.8%) lower than in September 2019.

The reserved public sector employment includes:

• Reserved Civil Service (see section 5);
• Armed Forces;
• Other Public Sector (which covers Public Sector Financial Institutions, Non-Departmental Bodies and Other Bodies).

Chart 5 shows the size of each group in the reserved public sector as at September 2020.

Source: Public Sector Employment in Scotland, Quarter 3 2020

Note: Totals may not equal the sum of the individual parts due to rounding.

The decrease in the overall headcount in the reserved public sector was due to:

• Employment levels for Other Public Sector^[5] falling by 2,430 (10.7%) from 22,800 in September 2019 to 20,300 in September 2020;
• Employment levels for the Reserved Civil Service falling by 430
  (1.7%) to 24,100;

while:

• Employment levels for the Armed Forces increased by 130 (1.3%) to 9,800.