Scottish economic bulletin: December 2023

Provides a summary of latest key economic statistics, forecasts and analysis on the Scottish economy.


Output

Scotland’s GDP growth remains subdued going into the fourth quarter of the year.

  • Scotland’s GDP grew 0.2% in the three months to October, down from 0.4% in the three months to September. This reflected a sharp fall in output of 0.5% during the month of October (-0.3% across the UK as a whole) with anecdotal evidence indicating that the storms and exceptionally wet weather during the month impacted on business activity across sectors.[1]
  • More broadly, the level of GDP has remained broadly flat since the start of 2022, reflecting the ongoing weakness in economic growth.
Bar and line chart showing the recent broadly flat pace of GDP growth in Scotland and the UK during 2022 and 2023.
  • Growth in the 3-months to October was driven by the services (0.1%) and production (1.4%) sectors, offsetting the first 3-month fall in construction output in two years (-0.4%).
Bar and line chart showing positive growth in services and construction sectors and falling output in the production sector during most of 2023, with production growing and construction contracting in recent months.
  • Within the production sector manufacturing output continued its downward trend, falling 1.4% in the 3-months to October and has now fallen 5.6% over the past year. In the services sector, there was further robust growth in professional, scientific and technical services (1.8%), while consumer facing services grew 0.2%. This was mainly driven by growth in accommodation and food services (0.5%) and arts, culture and recreation (1.1%) while retail output continued to fall (-0.3%).

Contact

Email: OCEABusiness@gov.scot

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