According the above graph from the ONS, Scotland’s unemployment rate continues to be lower than that of the UK, of England, of all the English regions other the affluent and highly subsidised south and of Northern Ireland. This has been the pattern (other than the sudden fall in NI) for at least a year now, as the Scottish economy shows multiple signs of health to contradict the unreliable estimates of GDP and GERS used by the Unionist media to weaken the case for independence. The Northern Ireland figure is puzzling when you see that it also has the very lowest employment rate. Perhaps a reader can explain this.
Scotland also has one of the highest employment rates in the UK with only the super-heated economy of the south having a higher rate.
Another interesting and at first puzzling graph from the same source reveals that Scotland has had the second-highest increase in ‘workforce jobs’ in the last year. I admit having to find out just what this means. Here’s a definition:
‘Workforce jobs measures the number of filled jobs in the economy. The estimates are mainly sourced from employer surveys such as the Short-Term Employment Surveys (STES) and the Quarterly Public-Sector Employment Survey (QPSES). Workforce jobs is a different concept from employment, which is sourced from the Labour Force Survey (LFS), as employment is an estimate of people and some people have more than one job.’
So, is this good news? Does it suggest more economic activity than the simple employment figures?
Talking-up Scotland 