Scotland's trade in occupational skills: a summary analysis for 1989

The study is based on an input-output analysis of Scotland's commodity trade in 1989, with the commodity trade results subsequently translated into trade in embodied labour. Brief methodological details are given later in the paper. The main focus of the research was to estimate the occupational labour requirements of Scottish output (ie. the labour required to satisfy Domestic demand plus the labour required to produce Scottish exports) and the labour displaced by Scottish imports from the rest of the UK (RUK) and the rest of the world (ROW) (ie the labour which would have been required in order to produce the imported goods domestically). This economy wide skills audit of Scottish Industry by SOC, (Standard Occupational Classification) facilitates an impartial evaluation of Scotland's trade in labour skills in 1989. It therefore measures Scottish skill requirements as evidenced by Scotland's actual trading and business activity, not by what is thought to be Scotland's needs. The analysis provides clear evidence to guide the examination of where the domestic availability of skills relative to requirements is 'strongest' and where it is'weakest'.