Monthly economic brief: April 2023

Output

GDP growth at the start of 2023 has strengthened from the second half of last year.

• The Scottish economy grew by 4.9% in 2022, following growth of 8.4% in 2021 as the economy continued to adjust following the pandemic and the impacts of the inflationary shock exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.
• The pace of growth slowed sharply over the course of the year however with growth largely confined to the first quarter. Latest data show the Scottish economy grew 0.2% in February 2023 (UK: 0.0%) and more broadly grew 0.4% in the 3-months to February, indicating that the underlying pace of growth has strengthened slightly from the second half of last year. ^[1]

• At a sector level, growth was broad based in the 3-months to February across the services (0.2%), production (0.9%) and construction (1.1%) sectors. Service sector growth was partly driven by consumer facing services (1.4%) while health, education and public services output fell 1.1%. Production sector growth was driven by the manufacturing sector (1.2%) which picked up to its fastest 3-month growth since April 2022, however, remains 2.5% lower over the year.