Rural Scotland People, Prosperity and Partnership

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Population and Employment

The structure of employment in rural areas is now much closer to that of Scotland as a whole and rural Scotland has fared better than the rest of the country during a period of changing industrial structure from the early 1980s. There has been a dramatic rise in service sector employment which has more than offset the decline in the more traditional industries in the primary and manufacturing sectors. Even so, primary industries still remain important in many rural areas, with agriculture, forestry and fishing accounting for 4.4% of rural employment.

Table: Employment by Industrial Sector

It is service industries not traditionally associated with rural areas that are growing the most. Both tourism and retailing figure highly but the main changes have come from increased employment in schools, hospitals and social services. Rural Scotland also has many people who are self employed in industries such as agriculture, fishing, textiles (like Harris Tweed weavers) and hotels. In many rural areas people can often have a variety of part time jobs.

Table: Employment Increases in Rural Scotland by Industry

Responding to Change

Today the average rural unemployment rate is below the national average, as it has been in the past. Together with the encouraging growth in jobs, this points to a rural workforce that has adapted well to changes in the labour market over the last ten years.

Growth in the overall levels of rural population and employment suggest economic success, a marked change from the downward trend in both indicators for many decades during the last century. Moreover, the position varies quite markedly across the constituent parts of rural Scotland and this makes any broad generalisation on rural economic performance difficult. Rural districts near the more successful urban areas, particularly those near Aberdeen, are doing especially well while more remote areas, particularly the islands, have more progress to make. Improvements in transport infrastructure have greatly reduced travel times, especially by road, and technological improvements have enabled businesses dependent on modern communications to locate in more remote rural areas. Thus rural Scotland contains a diverse mixture of areas in which the challenge is to build prosperity more evenly across rural Scotland, across business sectors and among different groups of the population.