BUSINESSES in Scotland reported a sharp fall in confidence in October, amid staff shortages and supply-chain disruption, a survey shows.
Bank of Scotland’s latest business barometer, published today, shows a tumble in optimism among companies north of the Border about the economy, during a month in which staff shortages and supply-chain woes across the UK fuelled by Brexit figured prominently in the headlines. Business confidence fell in the UK as a whole, although less sharply than in Scotland.
The fall in UK confidence, highlighted in a survey published by Bank of Scotland owner Lloyds Banking Group, was also driven by a decline in optimism about the economy.
Scottish businesses reported a marginal fall in confidence about their own prospects.
Bank of Scotland noted, in spite of the drop in overall optimism among Scottish businesses, the latest confidence reading was nevertheless “solid”. It flagged higher optimism among manufacturers across the UK.
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Tories outdo themselves with trade deal offering 0.00% boost
Fraser Sime, at Bank of Scotland, said: “October has been a challenging month for businesses across Scotland with fuel and staff shortages combined with continued shipping disruption presenting significant headwinds. Despite this, overall levels of business confidence remain solid...as firms display the resilience needed to keep operations running.”
Hann-Ju Ho, senior economist in Lloyds Bank's commercial banking division, said of the UK survey findings: “While economic optimism saw a slight dent in October due to rising costs and the ongoing supply chain issues, it is clear that firms are still feeling relatively buoyant as overall business confidence remains high and above the long-term average.
“With 60% percent of firms saying that they expect to bring all their furloughed staff back to work, and a further 30% intending to bring back more than half, it should bode well for the labour market as we head into the winter.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel