Monthly economic brief: May 2021

Footnotes

1 Scotland: https://www.gov.scot/collections/economy-statistics/; UK: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp; Eurozone: Home - Eurostat (europa.eu); US: https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gross-domestic-product

2 BICS weighted Scotland estimates: data to wave 30. https://www.gov.scot/collections/business-and-innovation-statistics/#businessimpactofcoronavirus(covid-19)survey(bics)

3 IHS Markit, RBS Purchasing Managers Index, May 2021. 4c7934f29cbc4c88963eadc5094859d7 (markiteconomics.com)

4 BICS weighted Scotland estimates: data to wave 30. https://www.gov.scot/collections/business-and-innovation-statistics/#businessimpactofcoronavirus(covid-19)survey(bics)

5 https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-overseas-trade-statistics-and-regional-trade-statistics#current-releases

6 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-overseas-trade-in-goods-statistics-march-2021

7 BICS weighted Scotland estimates: data to wave 30. https://www.gov.scot/collections/business-and-innovation-statistics/#businessimpactofcoronavirus(covid-19)survey(bics)

8 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/coronavirus-job-retention-scheme-statistics-6-may-2021

9 https://www.gov.scot/collections/labour-market-statistics/

10 Based on ONS Labour Force Survey, Jan-Mar 2021 however, the ONS Annual Population Survey is a more robust but less timely measure and shows 13.5% 16-24 unemployment rate for Jan – Dec 2020, up 5.2 percentage points over the year.

11 https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/earningsandemploymentfrompayasyouearnrealtimeinformationuk/may2021

12 https://www.gov.scot/collections/labour-market-statistics/

13 https://www.markiteconomics.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/48baf773cd9d47f6a4b7b33164ca1c77

14 Vacancies and jobs in the UK - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

15 https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/earningsandemploymentfrompayasyouearnrealtimeinformationuk/may2021

16 https://www.gov.scot/collections/economy-statistics/#scottishconsumersentimentindicator(scsi) Due to the coronavirus pandemic, data was not collected in the last two weeks of March and in April and May. Therefore there are no results for Q2 2020.

17 Mobility data is provided for the UK as a whole and for each separate local authority in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England. The data is first transformed into a 7 day rolling average and to then create aggregate estimates for each of the 4 nations, a population weighted summation is calculated across the respective local authorities. At times, or for certain indicators, some local authorities will have no data. This is usually to do with sample size, especially for more rural areas, and Google consequently do not publish any data to ensure anonymity is maintained. When this occurs that local authority is not included in the estimates and the population weights are re-calculated using the local authorities for which data is available. Due to the overall lower number of Local Authorities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, this means that the exact difference in estimated levels between nations is not strictly comparable and consequently a degree of caution should be taken when doing so. However, it is still useful to see how the overall trend in each nation changes over time or on key dates when restrictions change.

18 https://brc.org.uk/retail-insight/content/retail-sales/scottish-retail-sales-monitor/reports/202104_scottish_rsm/

19 https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/money-and-credit/2021/march-2021

20 https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/consumerpriceinflation/april2021

21 https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy-report/2021/may-2021

22 OECD Economic Outlook

23 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2021/03/23/world-economic-outlook-april-2021

24 https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy-report/2021/may-2021

25 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/forecasts-for-the-uk-economy-may-2021

26 https://www.fiscalcommission.scot/forecast/scotlands-economic-and-fiscal-forecasts-january-2021/

27 https://fraserofallander.org/publications/fai-economic-commentary-2021-q1/