Job vacancies have risen by almost a quarter in the past year, easing the competition for posts, according to an employment website.
Vacancies have risen by 24% and there are now an average of 14 people applying for each post compared with 16 a year ago, analysis by totaljobs.com has found.
A recent surge in the housing market has increased employment opportunities in property, which has recorded a 55% jump in vacancies.
Travel, leisure and tourism saw the second biggest rise at 33%, followed by catering and hospitality with a 31% rise.
Graduate jobs are up 19% and retail jobs have risen by 12%, despite a difficult period that saw Jessops, HMV and Blockbusters enter administration, totaljobs said.
Accountancy posts rose by 18% but jobs in banking, insurance and finance fell by 20% compared to last year.
Steve Clark, manager of totaljobs.com in Scotland, said: "The jobs market in Scotland continues to improve, with a 24% year-on-year rise in employment opportunities and increasing pay.
"With the summer now upon us, we've seen a flurry of job vacancies in tourism and hospitality, which is good news for school and college leavers hoping to gain valuable work experience.
"The warmer weather has boosted retail sales and the housing market looks like it's turning a corner.
"The fact that employment opportunities have increased in Scotland since last year is bound to contribute to cautious confidence amongst jobseekers and employers, and it is this cautious confidence that should encourage the growth and investment that this region needs."
The data is taken from the totaljobs.com barometer which analyses the behaviour of 4.8 million jobseekers and 5000 recruiters each month. It provides an early snapshot of the jobs market three months ahead of the official Office for National Statistics unemployment data.
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