A WEEK may be a long time in politics, but three months is only a snapshot for the economy. The latest unemployment figures for Scotland, released yesterday by the Office of National Statistics, are undoubtedly good news.
The rate fell from 4.5 to 3.8 per cent in the three months to May, a return not only to the level before the 2008 crash, but the lowest since such records began in 1992. It means there were 19,000 fewer people looking for work, down to 104,000.
Employment north of the border also rose by 25,000, to 74.1 per cent. The Scottish unemployment rate was slightly lower than that of the UK average, while the employment rate was slightly lower.
Nor were the ONS figures the only encouraging one regarding the Scottish economy.
Last week, we learned that in the first three months of 2017, Scottish GDP rose 0.8 percentage points, compared to a 0.2 rise for the UK as a whole. The expansion meant Scotland avoided a recession after going backwards in late 2016.
But, and you do not need to be one of the “merchants of doom” dismissed by Alex Salmond last week to see it, there is more to the economic picture than two days of positive headlines.
The ONS data also covers the full year to May 2017, and here the message is more mixed. As the Scottish Chambers of Commerce – not a body known for talking down the economy – observed, there is an issue with economic inactivity in the country.
This category within the labour market refers to those neither employed or unemployed. They include those who want a job but have not sought work in the previous month, students, those looking after family and the long-term sick.
In the most recent quarter, this group shrank fractionally in Scotland, but over the full year to May, it grew by 40,000 people to 22.9 per cent of the adult workforce. Over the same period most of the UK saw a fall or no change in inactivity, with only Northern Ireland also seeing an increase, and this was barely half of Scotland’s in percentage terms.
The Chambers also noted that, despite the recent shift, the number of Scots with jobs fell by 6,000. Such numbers showed the “continuing challenge facing the Scottish economy,” said the organisation’s chief executive, Liz Cameron.
There was no such caution from the Scottish Government, however.
Economy Secretary Keith Brown hailed a “resilient and robust” labour market and “further evidence of the strength of the Scottish economy”. He also touted an improvement in female employment (up from 70 to 70.6 per cent), while saying nothing of a greater fall in male employment (down from 79.5 to 77.7 per cent).
Last week, Mr Salmond and other Nationalists accused Unionist parties of “salivating” for bad news on the economy, and they had a point. In some quarters there appeared to be an indecent longing for a recession to attack the SNP. That was distasteful and wrong.
But nor should Scottish ministers try to declare mission accomplished on a handful of statistics. The economy takes time to change. All our politicians should use it to reflect more deeply on what they say about Scotland's economic health.
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