The Scottish economy [August 1983]

Trends in the Scottish economy mirror those in Britain as a whole, though with allowance for sectoral and regional variations. The mood of cautious optimism detected amongst Scottish manufacturers in the April CBI Survey appears to have been sustained into July, though Scottish firms are now significantly less optimistic about their export prospects than they were in April. A larger proportion of Scottish firms appear to be working at acceptable levels of capacity utilisation than do their counterparts in Britain as a whole and the July Survey suggests a slowing down of the rate of job loss in Scottish industry over the remainder of this year. However there are no indications of widespread intentions to increase employment while the Survey suggests that the pace of output growth is unlikely to accelerate. No significant reduction in the underlying seasonally adjusted unemployment total is likely over the coming 9 months. We expect the unadjusted total excluding school-leavers to amount to 338,000 in December. In principle the number of unemployed school leavers should be considerably lower than in the recent past as the MSC's Youth Training Scheme comes into lull operation with a guarantee of a training place for all unemployed 16 year old school leavers and the likelihood or a place for any interested 17 year old.