Briefing 6: Levels of Employment

Overview

Information on employment levels is available from the Annual Population Survey provided by the Office for National Statistics. 

The employment data is available at two levels, "Resident Employment" and "Workplace Employment" and it is important to understand the difference between the two:

• Resident Employment is an estimate of the number of people in employment within a specific geographical area, regardless of where they work; and
   
• Workplace Employment estimated the number of jobs within a specific geographical area, regardless of where the employee lives. 

Resident and Workplace Employment in Glasgow

The following analysis for Glasgow uses data from the 12 months to December each year.  As it is a survey, the figures have a confidence interval, however for the ease of analysis the midpoint of this interval has been used. 

Information on population levels has been added, also from the Office for National Statistics.  It is not yet clear how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected this information, the purpose is to outline the trends that were in place.

Table 1: Resident and Workplace Employment in Glasgow - Changes Over Time

Note: Some figures have been rounded for the sake of consistency.

The table shows a very clear consistency in the size of the change between 2005 and 2020 across the indicators.  To start with, the population increase over the period is virtually the same as the increase in the working age population, using a more traditional version of the retirement age. 

The increase in workplace employment is to all intents the same as the increase in resident employment, suggesting that the gains in employment have been largely to the benefit of people living in Glasgow.   

There will have been some in-commuters that have benefited from this increase in jobs, however the figures suggest this will have been offset by a similar amount of out-commuters.

Employment and Population Changes 2005-20 

A comparison of these trends can be made with other cities.

Table 2: Employment and Population Changes 2005-20 - Selected UK Cities

The cities vary in their population; however the point here is to compare the size of these changes as they affect each city (read horizontally rather than vertically).  For the other cities, the patterns are quite different. 

It is clear that Glasgow is an outlier in that all four indicators of change are essentially the same; with the other cities there is a much greater variation.  Some of the points arising from this information include the following:

• Glasgow is the only city where the increase in workplace employment is basically the same as the increase in resident employment.  In all the other cities the increase in workplace employment is greater than the increase in resident employment, suggesting that for these cities in-commuting is a much greater factor than in Glasgow in facilitating the increase in workplace employment.
   
• Glasgow is also the only city where the increase in the size of the working age population is the reason for the increase in total population; in the other cities there is an increase in the dependent population (children aged 15 and under, people aged 65+) which is not seen in Glasgow to the same extent.
   
• In all areas, not all the increase in the 16-64 population will lead to employment, as within this age group there will be people in full-time education, those with full-time caring responsibilities, and those taking early retirement as well as the unemployed.
   
•  Local circumstances explain the pattern in each city, in particular how local authority boundaries are drawn, whether or not they include suburban commuter areas, and the particular dynamics in these areas.