26th January 2012

Contractor pay sees gradual rise in Scotland

Contractor pay in Scotland has risen slightly, although the market as a whole remains challenging.

This is according to the latest Report on Jobs from the Bank of Scotland, which showed that temporary pay rates were up slightly during December of last year. The pace of the increase was slightly stronger than that of the previous month.

Meanwhile, permanent salaries showed a marginal increase, while problems with the availability of both permanent and contractor positions continued to struggle to grow. In fact, Aberdeen-based recruitment agencies were the only group to report high contractor staff billings, although candidate availability increased as a whole.

Donald MacRae, chief economist at the Bank of Scotland, commented: "The labour market is showing the negative effects of the slowdown in the Scottish economy. The barometer, although still just positive and indicating a marginal improvement in December, is at its lowest for over a year."

Mr MacRae added that the majority of indicators suggest that the Scottish jobs market is still outperforming that of the UK as a whole, despite the fact that the economy is struggling to sustain solid growth in the face of the global downturn.