This document summarizes trends in the Scottish labor market from 2007-2015. It finds that while employment has increased, workers are more likely to be in insecure forms of work like part-time, temporary, or self-employed positions. Median wages have also collapsed over this period. The document outlines diverging approaches between the UK coalition government, which promotes labor market flexibility, and the Scottish government, which advocates for social partnership, fair work policies like living wages, and empowering workers. It acknowledges barriers to reforming Scotland's labor market due to entrenched asymmetries of power and a lack of social partnership traditions.
3. Scottish Labour Market 2015
• Relatively high employment (though yet to
achieve pre-recession rate), falling
unemployment (though still 50k above pre-
recession level)
• Workers less likely to be full-time/employees
• More likely to be part-time, temporary, self-
employed, under-employed
• Rapid increase in insecure forms of work (but
poor information!)
• Unprecedented sustained collapse in median
wage
10. Percentage of people in employment
on a zero-hour contract
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
UK2 England N East N West Y & H E Mid W Mid East London South East South
West
Wales Scotland
11. Employees feeling tense, worried, uneasy ‘all’, ‘most’ or
‘some’ of the time by usual weekly working hours (%),
WERS 2011
12. Spend (% of GDP) on active labour
market programmes, 2001-2011
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
EU (28 countries)
Denmark
Germany
Netherlands
Austria
Finland
Sweden
United Kingdom
17. Diverging approaches
Coalition
• Promote and extend flexibility of UK model
• Widen asymmetries of economic power; anti
workplace democracy
Scottish Government
• Social partnership
• Fair Work
• Living Wage
• Working Together Review
• Cabinet Secretary for Fair Work, Skills and Training
18. Programme for Government
“We [also] need to make sure that those in
work get fairly rewarded…A thriving economy
depends on well-motivated, better paid
workers. Our strong support for business and
our measures to reduce inequality go hand in
hand. Our society will be all the fairer and more
successful when we end the blight of low pay”.
Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister, November 2014
19. Programme for Government
Commitments
• Range of measures to ‘expand the living
wage’
• Publish statutory guidance by end 2015 on
how workforce-related matters should be
taken into account in public contracts
• Gender balance on boards
• Business Pledge
20. Fair Work Convention
• “will be a powerful advocate of the
partnership approach which characterises
industrial relations in Scotland at their best”
• “will prioritise the role of the Living Wage and
develop a Fair Work Framework for Scotland”
21. Scotland’s Economic Strategy
• “Promote Fair Work and build a labour market
that provides sustainable and well-paid jobs”
• “Develop with key partners, such as business
organisations and trade unions, innovative
approaches to developing progressive workplace
practices”
• “Bringing more people into the labour market is
key to tackling poverty, inequality and social
deprivation and improving health and wellbeing”
22.
23. Barriers
• Starting from a bad place: deeply entrenched asymmetries
of economic power (relatively low TU membership and
collective bargaining coverage)
• UK’s distinct model of shareholder capitalism (uniquely
febrile market for corporate control; poor corporate
governance etc)
• Lack of capacity in key institutions: social partners,
academia
• No tradition of social partnership
• Employer organisations: atomised, unrepresentative,
ideological, poorly resourced (no analytical capability
between them)
• Ownership and control too often beyond Scotland’s borders
