Monthly economic brief: February 2023

The monthly economic brief provides a summary of latest key economic statistics, forecasts and analysis on the Scottish economy.

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Output

Economic output fell in November as the underlying pace of growth continued to stall.

  • The Scottish economy contracted by 0.1% in November, and growth was flat over the three months to November having fallen by 0.1% in the third quarter and was flat in the second quarter (0.0%).[1]
  • The weak performance over this period is broadly consistent with the pattern of growth in the UK as a whole (-0.3% in the three months to November) and reflects a stalling in growth as the economy faced increasing and elevated inflationary pressures over the course of the year.
Bar and line chart of the total GDP growth rate for Scotland and UK between January 2019 and November 2022.
  • The pace of growth was on a downward trend across sectors during 2022 and services sector output fell 0.1% in the three months to November. This was in part driven by a 0.7% fall in consumer facing services, despite anecdotal evidence at a UK level that the World Cup had helped generate some business activity in food and beverage services activities in November.
  • Construction output also fell in the three months to November (-0.2%), while Production output grew 0.6% over the period, with growth in the sector driven by electricity and gas output (3.5%). Manufacturing output however fell 0.1% over the three months and there are indications that supply side challenges continue to impact the production sector, though to a much lesser extent than earlier in the year.
Bar and line chart of total GDP growth in Scotland and by sector group between January 2022 and November 2022.

Contact

Email: OCEABusiness@gov.scot

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