One in 10 working age Scots have never had a job, a new analysis of figures has revealed.
A total of 314,200 people in Scotland, aged 16-64, have never worked a day in their lives, the data from the Office for National Statistics claims.
This includes 165,700 Scots who are not in full-time education, but have still not worked.
It means that more than nine per cent of the 3,468,100 working age adults have never had a job, according to the analysis by the Scottish Conservatives.
The figures come amid major concerns about the soaring cost of benefits in Scotland.
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay, told the Daily Telegraph: ‘We’ve got an SNP Government that is not remotely interested in Scotland’s economy.
‘Far too many people are trapped on a life of benefits to their great detriment – and to the detriment of the wider economy.’
He said the figures are ‘deeply concerning’ but said he was ‘not surprised’ by what they showed.
One in 10 working age Scots have never had a job, a new analysis of figures has revealed (Stock Photo)
Mr Findlay said: ‘It’s unfair on them. It’s unfair on those who are working hard and paying tax, and that’s why we need to do a lot better as a country about getting these people into the workplace.’
The number of people who have never worked in Scotland has soared dramatically in the last year.
In 2022, 111,500 people were recorded as having never having worked and were not in full-time education, but this figure soared to 151,200 in 2023 and to 165,700 in 2024, according to data compiled by the Scottish Parliament’s independent research centre (SPIce) in response to a request by the Tories.
The figures come after Mr Findlay used a speech at the Tory conference to condemn the SNP’s failings on the economy, the bloated benefits bill and the nationalisation of industry.
He claimed that both the SNP and Reform UK are ‘economic vandals’, while the Nationalists wants to turn Scotland into a country ‘that rewards skivers, and not strivers’.
In contrast, he pledged that the Scottish Conservatives will be ‘Scotland’s party of economic opportunity’.
Audit Scotland recently highlighted that more people in Scotland now identify as having a long-term illness, going from 18.7 per cent in 2011 to 21.4 per cent in 2025.
A report by the Auditor General for Scotland recently showed how the Scottish Government will spend £2.6 billion on the adult disability payment (ADP) this year, which is £141 million more than the funding it receives for it through its block grant from Westminster.
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay used a speech at the Tory conference to condemn the SNP’s failings on the economy, the bloated benefits bill and the nationalisation of industry
It said the overall funding gap for ADP will grow to £770 million by 2029/30 – and that the overall gap for all devolved social security payments will rise to £2 billion by the end of the decade.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Scotland’s unemployment and claimant count rates are lower than the UK as a whole and our devolved employability services have supported almost 27,000 people into employment.
‘The Adult Disability Payment is a payment to help with the additional cost of being disabled. It is not an unemployment benefit and many of its recipients are in full-time employment.’
In the UK, one million young people aged 16 to 24 are not in education, employment or training, of which an alarming 58 per cent have never had a paid job, according to ONS statistics.
In 2020, it was revealed that 3.4 million people in the UK (8.2 per cent of the working-age population) had never had paid employment.
