Whilst the issue of Scottish independence has thankfully been bottled for this generation, the country still needs plenty of umbrella company contractors.
At least, that’s what the Bank of Scotland said recently. According to its latest jobs report there’s a serious demand for interim workers that only increased even further this past August, and the engineering and construction industries in Scotland are in incredibly dire need of additional staff in order to keep up with demand on their own part.
Quite a bit of this jump in demand is likely due to the re-energising oil and gas sector, with countless drilling rigs springing back to life after their partial maintenance shutdowns over the summer and finding themselves in need of additional staff. This undoubtedly contributed to the soaring levels of contractor pay north of the border, which saw the fastest rates of growth for the entire UK. As a result of course freelancer and contract worker availability plummeted as firms snapped up anyone and everyone it could during the month.
This is of course fantastic news for the economy, both in Scotland and for the entirety of the UK. In addition, now that there’s no danger of economic upheaval from an independent Scotland, economic growth in the country is likely to continue unabated as businesses breathe a sigh of relief and turn their attention away from bracing for the inevitable catastrophic instability and instead return to working on growing the economy once again.
For what it’s worth, I of course empathise with those Scots disappointed with the failure of the independence referendum but I have to say that it’s more than likely for the best. A united Britain is undoubtedly stronger, and with the matter finally put to bed Scotland is likely to attract renewed attention from firms that might have been less than keen to invest in a country that was about to shoot its own economy in the foot. Now, freelancers and contract workers will continue to bask in positively massive levels of demand as they drive the Scottish economy forward even in the face of a country-wide skills shortage that has been flummoxing employers for countless months already.
