Scotland sees fall in real wage growth and unemployment

Unemployment has fallen in Scotland but wage growth has failed to keep up with the rising cost of living, according to official figures.

The Office for National Statistics said regular pay rose by 4% between December and February, and by more than 5% when bonuses were taken into account.

But that did not keep up with inflation, which is running at 6.2%.

Meanwhile Scotland's unemployment rate fell to 3.5%, down 0.1 percentage points from the previous quarter.

It has fallen 0.2 percentage points from the same period two years ago, before the onset of the pandemic.

Across the UK, 3.8% of the workforce is unemployed.

However, Scotland's employment rate also fell during the months when a new wave of coronavirus - the Omicron variant - disrupted the economy.

It dropped 0.3 percentage points from the previous quarter to 74.7%, according to the ONS Labour Force Survey. That is 0.6 percentage points lower than pre-pandemic levels between December 2019 and February 2020.

Early estimates indicate that median monthly pay for payrolled employees in Scotland increased to £2,050 in March 2022 - an increase of 4.4% compared to the same period last year.

This is lower than the annual growth in median monthly pay for the UK over the same period (5.9%).

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Scotland sees fall in real wage growth and unemployment

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