Scottish construction industry under pressure
The Scottish construction industry is still under pressure with workloads in the public and the private sector falling marginally in the final quarter of 2009. However, while there are signs of increased activity in the early part of 2010 it is believed that the vast majority of this is from publicly funded projects introduced by the Scottish parliament.
Many analysts and economists have accepted that the Scottish economy will be last area of the UK to pull out of recession and this publicly funded crutch, which has appeared in the construction sector, would seem to confirm this assumption. While on one hand the Scottish executive should be applauded for attempting to support the Scottish economy on the other hand there are concerns about the medium to long term outlook after publicly funded projects begin to fade.
There was a report in the financial press only a few days ago which suggested that if Scotland had been an independent nation the cost of the financial bailout would have equated to around £200,000 per household. Whether this figure is scaremongering by anti-independence supporters or in fact reality for the Scottish government and the Scottish economy is open to debate.
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