Scottish Government
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Jobs at the heart of Scotland’s future

Independence would boost the labour market recovery

With the unemployment rate at a five year low and 90,000 more people employed than last year - an independent Scotland would introduce additional far-reaching measures to support employment.

Figures this week show that Scotland has a higher employment rate and lower unemployment rate than the other nations in the UK; this highlights what has been achieved with the limited powers the Scottish Parliament, including:

  • The appointment of the first dedicated Minister for Youth Employment
  • Exceeding our commitment to provide 25,000 new apprenticeship opportunities in each year of the parliament
  • Opportunities for All which offers an appropriate place in learning or training for all 16-19 year olds not in education, employment or training
  • Over £1 billion a year to be invested in higher education
  • Investment of over £500 million in colleges every year
  • Committing £52 million to the Employability Fund, drawing together investment from the Scottish Funding Council and Skills Development Scotland in pre-employment training ensuring provision is tailored towards the needs of participants and local labour markets.

Scotland has a stronger employment record than the UK and with independence would have a head start on building a labour market which is resilient, adaptable to economic changes, and able to respond quickly to new opportunities and challenges.

Independence will enable future Scottish governments to create a more coherent framework for employment and the labour market than the current complex split of devolved and reserved responsibilities - linking education, employability training, welfare, taxation and health with action aimed at creating a supportive business environment to foster job creation.

In the first of a series of a series of Cabinet meetings to be held around Scotland to discuss Scotland’s Future, the First Minister will on Tuesday focus on the issue of jobs and employability when he and the Cabinet visit Bathgate.

Scotland’s Future proposes;

  • Integrating skills and employability
  • Bringing together job-matching, employability and careers guidance which are currently being delivered separately in Scotland by the Department for Work and Pensions and Skills Development Scotland
  • Supporting the Youth Guarantee with rapid intervention within four months to help young people with education, training or employment
  • Increasing childcare to help more women into work
  • Halting the roll out of Universal Credit in Scotland, and reforming the system so that low paid second earners (mainly women) keep more of the money that they earn.

Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth John Swinney said:

“An engaged and productive workforce is central to our long-term economic vision and I want everyone living in Scotland to have open and fair access to rewarding, well-paid jobs.

"Scotland is already the best performing of the four nations of the UK in terms of unemployment and employment rates. There is more that we can do and with the full powers of independence we could transform support to get people into work and give employers access to the skills they need to grow their business.

“With the powers we have at present we have appointed a Youth Employment Minister to focus solely on getting young people into work, we have continued the Education Maintenance Allowances that help young people remain in school and our Modern Apprenticeships include on the job training, which has helped ensure that 92 per cent of those who complete MAs have jobs around six months after completion.

“And our training and support programmes like Opportunities for All pick people up earlier than the programmes run by the UK Government. But all of that good work can come to a halt when people being supported by the Scottish Government are dragged into the UK Work Programme, or find themselves facing unfair or unjust sanctions.

“Tackling the labour market challenges requires greater cohesion. Independence will allow us to build a more coherent framework for employment and the labour market – bringing together education, employability training, welfare, taxation and health to support business and boost job creation.

“Integrating the work done by job centres, by skills agencies and by our schools and colleges – in ways we cannot currently do – would make it much easier for people to get the right support at the right time and allow services to be customised more closely to the needs of individuals.

“Some of the good results we have seen in Scotland come from providing help and support to young people within four months, not waiting until people have been out of work for nearly a year. With responsibility for all employment policy we could expand that early intervention – quickly matching labour force skills with labour market needs.

“Instead of debating how to limit the impact of Westminster’s benefit cuts and the failures of the work programme – with independence we can focus on getting more people into work and use all of our resources to achieve that.”

Notes to editors

Scotland’s Future is available at www.scotreferendum.com

Scottish Government ministers will visit Bathgate on 28 January where Cabinet will undertake the first of a series of meetings outside of Edinburgh. The Cabinet meeting will be followed by a public discussion on Scotland’s Future.

Scotland is the best performing of the four nations of the UK in terms of unemployment and employment rates, according to the most recent labour market figures which show for the period September to November 2013:

  • The unemployment rate of 6.4 per cent is the lowest since January-March 2009
  • Over the year the number of women in employment has increased by 62,000 - the largest annual increase on record
  • The largest annual increase in the employment level since April to June 2007.

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