Scottish economic bulletin: February 2024

Output

Scotland’s GDP fell in October and November indicating weaker growth in Q4 2023.

• Scotland’s GDP fell 0.2% in the three months to November 2023, in part reflecting recent monthly falls in output across October (-0.6%) and November (-0.1%). UK GDP also fell by 0.2% over the same period.^[1]
• This is the first three monthly fall in GDP since June however continues to reflect a period of weak economic growth in which Scotland’s GDP fell 0.6% over the twelve months to November.

• The fall in output in the three months to November was relatively broad based across the services (-0.1%), production (-0.3%) and construction (-0.4%) sectors.

• Within the production sector, manufacturing output continued its downward trend, falling 3.4% in the three months to November and has now fallen 8.9% over the past year with notable falls in the manufacture of metals, metal products, machinery and equipment (-14.9%) and food products, beverages and tobacco (-13.3%).
• In the services sector, the fall in output was marginal overall (-0.1%) and the first three monthly fall in services output since September 2022 with output growing 0.7% over the past year. However the pace of growth in the sector has slowed in the second half of 2023 with the recent fall in output driven by a further contraction in wholesale, retail and motor trades (-2.3%) and flat growth across consumer facing services more broadly (0.0%), albeit partly supported by positive growth in accommodation and food services (0.5%).
• More broadly, the pace of growth slowed in other parts of the services sector such financial and insurances activities (0.1%) and professional, scientific and technical services (0.2%).