Employment Rate

This measures the proportion of the working age population (aged 16-64) in employment.  It is resident based and includes people living in Glasgow that either work in Glasgow or out-commute.  It therefore excludes in-commuters.  The most recent information is from the Annual Population Survey for the year ending June 2012, and is that

• 259,600 working age adults in Glasgow are in employment;
• this is 63.2% of working age population, based on a working-age population of 410,800;
• it is an increase of 3,400 (1.3%) from the comparable figure in 2011;
• while the number employed is lower than the levels in 2008 and 2009, it is higher than the comparable levels in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

You could conclude from this that employment levels are slowly recovering from the recession: they have not yet reached the highpoint of 2008, when the level reached 270,000, but they are still higher than the level of the middle of the last decade.

Additional points are

• the size of the working age population has been increasing (and possibly underestimated) so that this increase in employment numbers does not translate directly to increases in the employment rate;
• the employment rate for men (67.2%) is higher than the female rate (57.3%) and the recent increase has affected more men than women;
• the full-time/part-time ratio is 3:1 and the main recent increase has been in part-time jobs;
• while the employment rate for 16-24s has been falling, the rate for both 25-49s and 50-64s has increased.

For comparison

• the UK employment rate is 70.1%, and 70.9% for Scotland;
• Birmingham is 58.4%, Manchester 58.7%, and Liverpool 59.0%;
• Leeds is 68.7%;
• all as a percentage of the 16-64 working age population.

But note that estimates of the working age population vary.  In Leeds, it varies from 552,100 (March 2012 Annual Population Survey) to 551,500 (2010 mid year estimate) and to 513,400 (2011 Census, but for 15-64 population).  We'll only get the full picture once the Census results for Scotland become available, around December 2012.