Talking-up Scotland

Spain’s youth unemployment, in October 2016 was 43.6% just below Greece at 46.6%. Even France was at 25.8%. The UK rate was 9^th lowest at 12.9% and Germany’s was lowest at 6.9%. Second-lowest in the Statista figures was Netherlands at 10.5%. Scotland was not listed separately. That Scotland’s youth unemployment is now the second lowest in the EU comes from the Scottish Financial News and is apparently based on Office for National Statistics figures. As far as I can see the ONS reports have no Scottish breakdown at all so I don’t know where the SFN got them from.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/266228/youth-unemployment-rate-in-eu-countries/

http://www.scottishfinancialnews.com/11936/scottish-employment-up-by-8000/

Scottish youth employment, at 56.2% is higher than in the UK overall, at 53.3%. The only group where employment is notably higher in England are the over 65s at 10.4% to 8.8% respectively. So, is greater austerity in England is forcing more of the elderly to work on? Is that healthy?

http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0051/00513220.pdf  Table 6b

‘Scotland’s productivity grows four times faster than UK’

This is from the Daily Business Group on February 15th 2017:

‘Productivity in Scotland has grown four times faster than the UK average and the economy is now performing at the same rate, according to new data….Output per hour worked in Scotland – a measure of how much output the economy produces in each working hour – has grown 3.5% in 2015, compared to a UK figure of 0.9%. Scottish productivity has now effectively caught up with UK levels – increasing from 94.5% of the UK average output per hour in 2007 to 99.9% in 2015.’ 

 We must hope that this is a trend and we overtake the UK figure next year.

https://dailybusinessgroup.co.uk/2017/02/scotlands-productivity-grows-four-times-faster-than-uk/

Unemployment

The Daily Business Group also mentioned:

‘The Scottish unemployment rate is 4.9%, against 4.8% for the whole of the UK.’

Is 0.1% significant? Are there parts of the UK where it’s higher due to the distorting effect of the South-East and London?

I’m not watching or reading the MSM so I can only imagine how they’ve headlined the above. I did accidentally see the Daily Record’s:

‘Concerns as unemployment soars in Scotland but falls south of the border’

Could that difference be due to the Scottish over-65’s being able to retire due to better support systems and, for example, being able to visit recreation facilities and their relatives free on the bus? See the table above.

Might these unemployment figures matter little in the next few years because of this idea below from the EU?

‘MEPs have warned European countries must “seriously” consider introducing a general basic income to prepare for wide scale unemployment that could come as a result of robots taking over manual jobs. A draft report….warns preparations must be made for what it describes as the “technological revolution” currently taking place, including provisions for the “possible effects on the labour market of robotics”. The report, which passed by 17 votes to two and will be put in front of the entire European Parliament in February, urges member states to consider a general basic income in preparation for robots taking over people’s jobs.’

 They’re not the only ones saying this kind of thing. Try Googling ‘universal basic income’ and be prepared for a lot of reading. There are already planned pilots in Fife and Glasgow for this year, 2017.

The case for it is here: http://www.basicincome.org.uk/reasons-support-basic-income