Chamber and committees

Fergus Mutch, do you want to add anything on behalf of your members?

You have mentioned a number of areas in which there are pressures due to a lack of skilled workers. What needs to happen to increase the pool of skilled workers? What can businesses do to tackle labour shortages?

To start with, I will address my questions to Professor Chadha. We have talked about the labour situation, and I want to come back to a couple of things that you have mentioned. You quite rightly highlighted that employment remains high and that Scotland has record employment levels. The unemployment and inactivity rates are also lower than they are in the rest of the UK. Could you therefore say something about the record vacancy levels in the economy? I do not have a number for Scotland, but across the UK it is about 1.2 million. What impact is that having on the economy, and how do we address that?

You have touched on inactivity rates a couple of times. I do not know whether you have the Scotland numbers, but I like looking at the long-term trends. In May 2007, the inactivity rate in Scotland was 21.4 per cent, and the activity levels for October 2022 is 21.4 per cent. The percentage is exactly the same as it was 15 years ago. Has there been any change to inactivity levels, given that 87 per cent of those who are considered to be inactive are students, have family commitments, are long-term sick or are retired? Has all that changed since 2007, when the percentage was exactly the same as it is now?

Emma Congreve, what are the links between a growing population and productivity?

The reason for asking the question is that we might well be able to increase employment among the inactive, but that will not fill all the vacancies that are available. The European Union unemployment rate is 6 per cent, with Spain at 12.5 per cent, Greece at 11.5 per cent, and France at 7 per cent. That is a readily available workforce of people who previously came to the UK and Scotland to fill vacancies in hospitality and so on—we know that we have a problem there. What impact has the loss of freedom of movement had on the economy?

Susan Murray, I want to ask you about the number of registered businesses in Scotland and how important those are for growing the economy and providing new jobs. If we look at the time series data for the number of registered businesses in Scotland by all different sizes, we see that there were 147,000 in 2006 and 175,000 in 2022, which is a growth of 19 per cent. Similarly, for all businesses, whether registered or unregistered, that number has grown from 267,000 in 2006 to 360,000 in 2022. What impact will the contraction of labour have on the growth of companies, and on Scotland’s GDP?

Okay. Just to be clear, every single category of employer has shown an increase since 2006.

I have a question for Susan Murray. She talked about the number of people who were retiring and changes in the labour market. What impact have UK Government changes to pension regulations had on that?

Your mic is muted, Ms Murray.

In your July report, I noticed that one of the items in the list of strategic priorities is tackling fuel poverty and that

“Action on energy efficiency is urgently needed.”

What are the current bottlenecks that are holding back progress on energy efficiency improvements? Is it shortage of labour, shortage of materials or finance?