A MIXED picture of the Scottish jobs market has emerged from the latest research from Bank of Scotland with strong growth in temporary jobs but with vacancies for permanent posts increasing at the slowest rate since late 2010.
The Bank of Scotland Labour Market Barometer, that takes into account a number of jobs market indices, rose slightly to 53.9 in October, where any number above 50 shows conditions are improving. In contrast for the UK as a whole, the barometer slipped to 49.6.
Donald MacRae, chief economist at Bank of Scotland, said the Scottish labour market is demonstrating “resilience”.
“Both the number of people employed and vacancies advertised grew, maintaining the lead over the UK,” he said.
The unemployment rate in Scotland is slightly better than for the UK as a whole, at 8%, against 8.3%.
But job numbers are still further below their pre-recession peak than for the wider UK and there are concerns about whether the private sector will be able to absorb the estimated 25,000 workers who will be forced to leave the public sector as spending cuts bite.
Both permanent and temporary placements increased over the month with Scottish recruitment agencies attributing this to greater client demand, the Bank of Scotland report found. Placings in permanent roles rose at the fastest pace since May.
Meanwhile, Scottish recruitment agencies have registered a rising number of vacancies for permanent posts for 13 consecutive months, but the latest increase was the weakest since November 2010.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article