Blogging from the Highlands of Scotland
'From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step' - Diderot

Wednesday 12 August 2009

Unemployment in Scotland increases, but Bill is confused

It so happens that I had my browser open on this BBC report about the latest jobless figures in Scotland earlier in the afternoon and had 'bookmarked' it to study it more closely later (even though I had already absorbed some of the key numbers and percentages it mentioned), when the same story was covered in the BBC Scotland 1.30pm news bulletin on BBC1 and I was surprised to hear the correspondent brought on to talk to the newscaster about it respond to the question of how Scotland was faring when compared to England in unemployment to hear her respond: "Well, Scotland is doing a little worse than England, but it's not much worse" or words to that effect. I was preparing lunch at the time so did a 'double take' because my recollection of the percentages quoted in the article showed the opposite, a slightly better position in Scotland than in England - unemployment now said to be 7 per cent in Scotland as against 7.8 per cent in England.

Am I missing something, or is there a mistake in the article on the internet, or indeed in what the correspondent said on the news bulletin? Both she and the article quoted the same figure for total unemployment of 188,000 in Scotland, up 75,000 since last year - a pretty dramatic increase.

Can anyone throw any light on the minor confusion? A simple mistake, or something else?

1 comment:

  1. I can't throw light on this. Bill but I'd be very interested when you do and post your results.

    ReplyDelete

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