Scotland scores high for jobless people in West Europe
It might be really strange to know that Scotland is loosing jobs at a faster rate in Western Europe with the impact of recession forcing employers to resort to layoffs in order to sustain their businesses. As per reports over 10,000 people lost their jobs in the last quarter ’09, which takes us to the present figure of 206,000 with previous years figure of 140,000.
The upward trend in the rate of jobless people has come up as one of the major concern for Scotland. Meanwhile economists suggests that this could be due to the historical nature of Scotland for lagging behind the rest of the UK. But if we compare the present figures for the jobless people in UK we can find that 7.6 per cent of people are out of job in Scotland with UK wide figure of jobless people standing at 7.8 per cent. Even analysis done by ONS has reported that Scotland’s rate of increase stands out to be the highest across the continent with just four countries including Greece, Estonia, Latvia and Romania succeeding Scotland rate of jobless people.
This report has come out to be a disappointment not only for the people of Scotland but also for the government who needs to tackle this problem soon. Liz Cameron, Chief Executive Scottish Chambers of Commerce said, “It is concerning we appear to be lagging against the reductions in unemployment being experienced in the rest of the UK. It may be some time before improving business.”
It is strongly felt that, if this problem is not addressed soon, then it might be a major setback for the ruling party and even a serious concern for the next elections. While SNP ministers have come out claiming the UK government needs to continue to spend to sustain the economy, the Enterprise Minister Jim Mather said, “ “The figures clearly demonstrate the compelling case for an economic stimulus package in the UK. Now time will tell who will decide the fate of those jobless people in Scotland.
News Source : The Scotsman