Scottish economic bulletin: December 2023

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.

• 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%).

• 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%).