The number of jobseekers in Scotland has fallen sharply, according to a new report.
The Bank of Scotland's labour market barometer for June registered the steepest drop in people searching for permanent employment since the survey began in 2003.
Salary inflation also reached a record high, driven by a surge in demand for staff coupled with the fall in candidate numbers.
Permanent and temporary job appointments increased at a faster rate in line with an upturn in the number of vacancies, the report found.
The findings highlight the "growing pressure" in Scotland's labour market, the bank said.
Its labour market barometer reached a survey-record high of 65.1 in June, up from 61.8 in May and marking the first increase since February.
The barometer measures areas such as levels of staff demand, employment and wages to create a single figure snapshot of labour market conditions.
The figure is measured against a baseline of 50, with anything above 50 representing an improvement and anything below a deterioration.
Donald MacRae, chief economist at Bank of Scotland, said: "June's barometer reached a record high in the eleven and a half years of the survey.
"The recovery in the Scottish economy looks set to continue."
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