SCOTTISH engineering firms have seen output, orders and staff numbers fall, according to research from the sector's trade body.
The Scottish Engineering Quarterly Review for March 2015 suggests slowing growth in China, the ongoing troubles in the eurozone and Russia and low oil prices were the main factors in the difficulties experienced by domestic firms in recent months.
Optimism dipped into negative territory for the first time since October 2012 while order intake, at -1, was negative for the second time in the past three quarters.
Small companies appear to be the ones suffering the worse decline in orders with large businesses flat and medium enterprise in positive territory.
The research uses a net balance between reports of increase and decreases or levels staying the same.
Both export and domestic orders were in negative territory while output levels slumped to -12, a low not seen for more than three years.
Along with reductions in the numbers of employees there was also a fall in the amount of overtime work which was needed.
With a -2 reading it was the first time since the second quarter of 2010 that employee numbers have fallen into negative territory.
Bryan Buchan, chief executive of Scottish Engineering, said: "We are experiencing an immediate and unfortunate effect in demand for those companies engaged in the very diverse supply chain for oil and gas.
"This has had a direct effect by reducing staffing levels, cutting overtime and impacting adversely on overall optimism throughout the industry."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article