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Glasgow City Region

Economic inactivity rates, Glasgow City Region, 2023

Chart showing levels of economic inactivity in GCR in 2023. The economic inactivity rate in Glasgow has been consistently higher than in other parts of the Glasgow City Region over the last two decades. Nevertheless, after a peak of 33.2% in 2012, the economic inactivity rate in Glasgow has reduced and was 25.6% in 2023, 3.1 percentage points above the Scottish rate.

The lowest rate shown in this chart was in East Renfrewshire (20.4%), and the highest was in North Lanarkshire (27.6%). 

Reasons for economic inactivity across Glasgow City Region
Chart showing the reasons for economic inactivity in Glasgow city region in 2023Of adults who were economically inactive in Glasgow in 2023, 31.2% were students, 26.5% were looking after their family/home, 24.1% were long-term sick and 4.8% were retired. 

This is the lowest proportion of people who were economically inactive due to being retired than any of the other local authorities shown. The highest proportion was in East Dunbartonshire (20.8%).

Glasgow had the second highest proportion of students, after East Renfrewshire (31.3%). The lowest was in Inverclyde (22.6%), which also had the lowest proportion of people economically inactive due to looking after their family/home. It had the highest proportion of people who were long-term sick (45.7%). 

Notes

Being economically inactive is an economical concept used by governments to describe those neither in employment nor unemployed. The official definition (from ONS) of being economically inactive is given below:

Economically inactive people are not in employment, but do not satisfy all the criteria for unemployment. This group is comprised of those who want a job but who have not been seeking work in the last 4 weeks, those who want a job and are seeking work but not available to start and those who do not want a job. For example, students not working or seeking work and those in retirement are classed as economically inactive.

These charts have removed the figrues for people who were temporarily sick, as number were too small to show for most of the local authorities included. 

This page was updated in February 2025.

Further reading under ‘Economic inactivity’