14 January, 2009

The Scottish economy is coming under rising pressure with figures released today revealing that output is reducing at a record rate and the UK finance services industry is getting ready to axe 15,000 British jobs in the next three months.

Royal Bank of Scotland's authoritative purchasing manager index point out more than two in five Scottish manufacturers saw diminishing output in December with just 16% announcing an increase in production. This shows the fastest fall in the 11-year history of the survey.

It was little appropriate among service companies with 43.2% indicating that business activity fell as compared to 11.2% who had seen a rise. Panel members blamed declining pressure of work for the drop in output.

This knocked on to employment with the rate of job-slashing in December exceeding the earlier survey record posted in November.

Some 22.8% of manufacturers had slash their workforce from the earlier month as had 23.6% of service providers, through either not replacing departing staff or formal redundancy programmes.

There are signs that job losses could get higher ever further with the Confederation of British Industry estimating some 10,000 monetary services jobs were lost in the last quarter of 2008.

It expects that the sector, which employs around a million people in the UK finance comprising more than 86,000 in Scotland, will shed another 12,000 to 15,000 roles in the first three months of this year alone, in addition more to come.

According to new figures, White-collar staff in management and consultancy has already been the biggest sufferers of the downturn so far. Between June and November, the Insolvency Service received notices of 22,038 redundancies at head offices in the management and consultancy sector that is an average of 848 a week.