Meeting of the Parliament 14 June 2017
I am grateful for the opportunity to set out to the Parliament Scotland’s economic strengths, our resilience to the economic challenges that we undoubtedly face and the opportunities that we are creating to grow and strengthen our economy for the benefit of all in our society.
Since coming to power, the Government has supported an improvement in Scotland’s economic performance during a uniquely challenging economic period that has been dominated by global financial crises and the United Kingdom Government’s austerity programme. Since 2007, over that very difficult period, the number of registered businesses has risen by 15 per cent; business research and development expenditure has increased by over 40 per cent in real terms; our international exports have increased by 41 per cent; and productivity has risen by 7.5 per cent, whereas it has stagnated at a UK level.
There are also over 80,000 more people in employment, and Scotland’s labour market has been remarkably resilient in the face of the challenges that we have encountered. The latest statistics, which were published this morning, show that the unemployment rate continues to fall and now stands at a record low of 4 per cent. The UK figure is 4.6 per cent, which is the same as it was previously, so it is stagnating. Our unemployment level is below that of the UK as a whole and below those of most other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. Indeed, the previous quarter was only the second quarter in the past 25 years in which unemployment has been that low.