Scottish economic bulletin: May 2024

Output

GDP growth continued to grow over the three months to February, although it contracted in the latest month.

• Scotland’s economic output grew 0.4% in the three months to February 2024, although it fell 0.3% over the month of February itself. This follows a 0.5% fall in the final quarter of 2023. The overall pace of growth remains subdued, however February’s data alongside monthly growth of 0.4% in December and 0.6% in January indicates a modest strengthening and suggests a modest growth outlook for the year ahead.^[1]

• The 0.4% growth in output over the three months to February was driven by a rise in output in the Services sector (0.7%) which offset further falls of output (0.7%) in both the Production and Construction sectors.
• Within the Production sector, manufacturing growth was flat in the three month period (0.0%), reflecting the current sequence of weak growth in the sector with output falling 1.1% over the year. However, monthly growth picked up sharply in February to 4.1%, its strongest rate of growth since the first half of 2021.
• The services sector as a whole grew 0.7% in the three months to February, reflecting a period of stronger underlying growth compared to during 2023. Growth during this period was strongest in both accommodation and food services (2.5%) and wholesale, retail and motor trades (2.4%). Consumer facing services also grew 1.3%, although in February they fell 0.7%.