ANY hope of brighter economic prospects for Scotland offered by a marginal drop in the unemployment rate from 8.1% to 8% and a rise in the number in work was immediately dampened by confirmation that the Scottish economy, like that of the UK, is officially in a double-dip recession.
Alex Salmond's claim that the Scottish economy was exhibiting greater resilience than the UK is true over the last three months of 2011 and the first quarter of this year when GDP in Scotland fell by 0.2% against 0.7% for the UK. However, a year-on-year comparison shows growth of 0.2% in Scotland compared with 0.6% for the UK, indicating a lagging pattern of recovery north of the Border and the fragile nature of the few green shoots in sight. That was confirmed earlier this week when the IMF again cut its growth forecast for the UK to just 0.2% for 2012 largely in anticipation of further slowdown from the eurozone crisis.
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