The jobless total fell by 3,000 to 118,000 among Scots aged over 16, while the number of people in work north of the border is also on the rise.

There were 2.64 million Scots with a job bertween April and June, a rise of 12,000 over the previous period. The biggest rise in employment was among women with a hike of 8,000, almost double the amount of new jobs among men.

Across the UK, unemployment fell by 65,000 in the latest quarter to 1.36 million, the lowest figure since 1976, giving a jobless rate of 4%. This is below the Scottish unemployment rate of 4.2%.

Unemployment has reached a 40-year low across the UK

But there has been a record fall in the number of EU nationals working in the UK, new figures show.

There were 2.28 million EU nationals working in this country in the quarter to June, 86,000 fewer than a year earlier, the largest annual decrease since records began in 1997.

Senior ONS statistician Matt Hughes said: "The number of people in work has continued to edge ahead, though the employment rate was unchanged on the quarter.

"The growth in employment is still being driven by UK nationals, with a noticeable drop over the past year in the number of workers from the so-called A8 eastern European countries in particular."

Unemployment in Scotland drops as EU workers leave UK