Scotland is leading the economic recovery with employment up 24,000 in the last three months and unemployment rates remaining lower than the UK average and Dundee’s MSPs have contrasted these improvements in Scotland with continuing stagnation south of the border.
The Dundee MSPs also welcomed Labour MP Jim McGovern’s admission that ‘there has been some improvement as a whole in Scotland’ and claim that figures for numbers in employment due later this year will show increases in Dundee in line with the national increase.
Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee City East commented: “There have now been eight consecutive months of reported falls in unemployment in Scotland, and we have lower unemployment, higher employment, and a lower rate of economic inactivity in Scotland than the UK as a whole.
“The Scottish Government is supporting 25,000 modern apprenticeships a year, the highest ever number, and we are tackling areas with the highest levels of unemployment, by using government funding to boost capital investment and help our construction industry.
“Construction jobs increased by 11.6 per cent in Scotland in the year to March – compared to a 0.2 per cent fall across the UK – and Dundee City Council and the Scottish Government are bringing forward projects such as an £4m advance payment to allow the V&A construction to start a year early, and to build the new Olympia centre which is presently ongoing.
“We are also funding new schools, supporting companies to expand and protect existing jobs elsewhere and investing in creating jobs in new sectors such as renewable energy.
“But the steady progress of our economic recovery is at risk from the Lib Dem and Tory Government’s refusal to allow the Scottish Parliament to use all the economic levers the people of Scotland want us to have, including the power to vary corporation tax which would allow us to seek inward investment and build our economy.”
“Dundee West MSP Joe FitzPatrick said: “The new figures released last week by the Scottish Government based on the Local Area Labour Market statistics, are calculated on the number of people claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance as a proportion of the total working age population.
“Although the figures are encouraging overall, they do show a 0.8 percentage point increase in the claimant count rate in Dundee city since June 2010, from 5.1% to 5.9%. This figure is disappointing given that there has been an improvement across Scotland as a whole but we do not yet have the balancing figures of employment numbers in Dundee as there is a lag of roughly ten months and the most-recent figures available date back to September 2010.
“However, as Scotland’s unemployment rate, at 7.6% is lower than the UK rate of 7.8% and Scotland’s employment rate has increased by 0.6% and is higher than anywhere else in the UK, I am confident that when new statistics for employment numbers are released they will show increases for Dundee in line with the national increase of 0.6% in the numbers of those employed.”
Source: http://dundeesnp.org
The Dundee MSPs also welcomed Labour MP Jim McGovern’s admission that ‘there has been some improvement as a whole in Scotland’ and claim that figures for numbers in employment due later this year will show increases in Dundee in line with the national increase.
Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee City East commented: “There have now been eight consecutive months of reported falls in unemployment in Scotland, and we have lower unemployment, higher employment, and a lower rate of economic inactivity in Scotland than the UK as a whole.
“The Scottish Government is supporting 25,000 modern apprenticeships a year, the highest ever number, and we are tackling areas with the highest levels of unemployment, by using government funding to boost capital investment and help our construction industry.
“Construction jobs increased by 11.6 per cent in Scotland in the year to March – compared to a 0.2 per cent fall across the UK – and Dundee City Council and the Scottish Government are bringing forward projects such as an £4m advance payment to allow the V&A construction to start a year early, and to build the new Olympia centre which is presently ongoing.
“We are also funding new schools, supporting companies to expand and protect existing jobs elsewhere and investing in creating jobs in new sectors such as renewable energy.
“But the steady progress of our economic recovery is at risk from the Lib Dem and Tory Government’s refusal to allow the Scottish Parliament to use all the economic levers the people of Scotland want us to have, including the power to vary corporation tax which would allow us to seek inward investment and build our economy.”
“Dundee West MSP Joe FitzPatrick said: “The new figures released last week by the Scottish Government based on the Local Area Labour Market statistics, are calculated on the number of people claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance as a proportion of the total working age population.
“Although the figures are encouraging overall, they do show a 0.8 percentage point increase in the claimant count rate in Dundee city since June 2010, from 5.1% to 5.9%. This figure is disappointing given that there has been an improvement across Scotland as a whole but we do not yet have the balancing figures of employment numbers in Dundee as there is a lag of roughly ten months and the most-recent figures available date back to September 2010.
“However, as Scotland’s unemployment rate, at 7.6% is lower than the UK rate of 7.8% and Scotland’s employment rate has increased by 0.6% and is higher than anywhere else in the UK, I am confident that when new statistics for employment numbers are released they will show increases for Dundee in line with the national increase of 0.6% in the numbers of those employed.”
Source: http://dundeesnp.org
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