SCOTLAND has lost almost a quarter of its manufacturing jobs in the past decade, one of the UK’s biggest unions has claimed.

The GMB said just short of 55,000 of the total 619,000 posts axed within the sector since 2006 were north of the border.

The union claimed that a decade ago over one in 10 of jobs in Scotland, 253,300, were in manufacturing but that by 2016 this had plummeted to 198,700, a fall of 22 per cent.

The fall is considerably higher than the UK regional average of 17 per cent and is topped only by the West Midlands.

More recent closures have included the Texas Instruments electronics plant in Greenock, which shut with the loss of 400 posts, and the announcement earlier this year that 260 jobs would go at the hi-tech Jabil plant in West Lothian.

In March, Johnson & Johnson plans to close a Scottish surgical suture factory with the loss of about 400 jobs as part of a global restructuring of its medical devices unit.

But the figures come amid potential shoots of improvement, with accountancy firm EY’s recently published annual survey showing Scotland has won a record number of foreign direct investment projects last year. The previous year, 2015, had also seen a 51 per cent leap in the number of such projects attracted.

A second EY report also found manufacturing output in Scotland is predicted to grow in line with the overall economy for the first time since 2013.

GMB Scotland secretary Gary Smith said: “The loss of 54,600 manufacturing jobs should shame the respective UK and Scottish governments who have overseen this massive decline without response.

“Most recently the impact of the oil price slump on North Sea oil and gas and it’s manufacturing supply chains has been widely felt but every area has it’s own sad story to tell over the last decade; Velux in Glenrothes, Johnnie Walker in Kilmarnock, Remploy in Springburn. We can go on and on.

“The bleed of decent-paid manufacturing jobs has also fuelled in-work poverty. The growth of precarious employment, frequently on the minimum wage, has seen the number of working poor rise to well over 600,000 people in Scotland.

“With more local economic pillars like Carron Phoenix in Falkirk due to end production over the next year and dire forecasts over the impact of Brexit on the Scottish economy, there seems no end in sight for our manufacturing misery.”

But one economist told The Herald: “Although I’ve some sympathy for the broad position this is really just posturing and difficult issues have just ignored.

“Manufacturing output has continued to rise,so job losses reflect productivity gains. How do we deal with this? What does ‘invest in UK industry’ mean? Some degree of state aid constraints persist in all Brexit scenarios. I’d take these regional stats with a huge pinch of salt.”

Jude Brimble, GMB National Secretary for Manufacturing, said: “If this sad decline is not addressed then post-Brexit Britain and the next generation will surely pay the price.”