David Comerford, Fraser of Allander Institute
As part of a project now underway at the Fraser of Allander Institute, we are considering the climate change and macroeconomic impacts of a change in demand toward a more healthy diet on the Scottish environment and economy.
In this blog we summarise some of the initial results from the analysis. Continue reading “The carbon emissions and economic impact of healthy eating in Scotland”
The unemployment rate among the working age population in Scotland fell to 3.9% in the three months from March to May, the lowest unemployment rate since comparable records began.
In headline terms, the Scottish labour market today looks broadly similar to the same quarter in 2008, as the UK was entering recession (although in 2008 the employment rate was slightly higher and inactivity rate slightly lower than it is today).
The proportion of the employed who work part-time is almost back at pre-recession levels (the part-time employed accounted for 25% of total employment in 2008, rising to 28% during the recession, but now back to 26%).
| Working age labour market statistics, Scotland | |||
|
Employment rate |
Unemployment rate |
Inactivity rate |
|
| March – May 2008 |
74.6 |
4.0 |
22.3 |
| March – May 2017 |
74.1 |
3.9 |
22.9 |
But underneath these headline figures, substantial changes in the composition of the Scottish labour market are observed.
Continue reading “Today’s labour market statistics: back to 2008?”
Last week’s quarterly growth figures of 0.8% for the first 3 months of 2017 were the best results for Scotland since 2014 – and much improved on the average quarterly growth of +0.14% during the last couple of years.
In this blog we unpick the sectoral results to see what they can tell us about the balance of growth and outlook.
We also address some recent comments about our own analysis.
Growth returns to the Scottish economy – with the fastest quarterly pick-up in over two years
Today’s figures report substantial (and welcome) growth of +0.8% in the Scottish economy in Q1. Not only does this mean that the economy avoids falling into the technical definition of recession – defined as two quarters of falling output – but it means that it has made up some of the ground lost last year (when it did not grow at all).
This blog summarises the key results from today’s figures.
Mhairi Love is a third year undergraduate economics student at the University of Strathclyde and is participating in a summer internship in the Fraser of Allander Institute supported by the Carnegie Trust. Mhairi’s research interests are in inclusive growth, labour economics and the Scottish economy. This blog is one of a series of articles Mhairi will publish over the summer summarising her research.
Boosting female participation in the Scottish labour market has been a key policy priority for successive governments over a number of years. Considerable progress has been made, but there remains much work still to be done if Scotland (and the UK) are to match the performance of some of the best performing counties on labour market gender equality (principally, the Scandinavian countries).
This blog summarises recent trends in the gender breakdown in Scotland’s labour force.
