In the Guardian today, not being covered by Scottish media so far:

The number of employed people in the UK has fallen, particularly in shops, restaurants, bars and hotels, reflecting weak hiring, while private sector wages grew at the slowest rate in five years, official figures show.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed the number of employees on payrolls fell by 43,000 in December from the previous month, to 30.2 million – the biggest monthly drop since November 2020.

The rate of unemployment remained at a four-year high of 5.1% in the three months to the end of November, but this was up from 4.4% a year earlier. November’s single-month rate jumped to 5.4%, the joint highest in more than five years. ¹

The unemployment rate in Scotland at the end of 2025, was 3.7%, down from 3.8% in 2024. ²

In crude terms 5.1 is 1.4 greater than 3.7 but as a percentage, to take account of the millions of people being referred to, unemployment in England is 37.8% higher.

There’s about 1.8m unemployed in the UK so if the rate was the same in the UK as it is in Scotland, hundreds of thousands of those would be in work.

Sources:

1. https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/headlinelabourforcesurveyindicatorsforscotlandhi11
2. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jan/20/employed-people-uk-falls-wage-growth-unemployment