Scottish unemployment rises

Despite the fact that headline unemployment fell by 33,000 across the whole of the UK between November and January there has been an increase of 16,000 in Scotland. While the Scottish rate of unemployment currently stands at 7.6%, which compares favourably to the UK rate of 7.8%, there are concerns that the Scottish economy is most definitely on a different recovery track to the rest of the UK.

We have seen a number of reports suggesting that the Scottish economy will lag the rest of the UK and today's unemployment figures seem to bear out these thoughts. When you also consider that a large number of those employed in Scotland are part of the public service sector there must be some short to medium term risk of significant job losses in this area. Indeed, rather bizarrely, we saw a further 600 civil servants employed by the SNP over the last year at a time when many private and public sector operations across the UK are reducing their staff numbers.

There is no doubt that the independence movement has been hit by the weakness in the Scottish economy and despite the SNP attempting to gloss over these problems it is starting to affect the thoughts and voting intentions of many in Scotland. Whether we will see the Scottish independence vote emerge during the next Parliament remains to be seen but hopes of a yes vote for the SNP are starting to diminish.