New Covid lockdowns need to be more targetted than current economic blunderbuss – John McLellan

As if the unemployment figures released earlier this week weren’t gloomy enough, Strathclyde University’s Fraser of Allander economic institute highlighted new information about the actual amount of work, a more realistic picture of economic activity uncamouflaged by the furlough scheme.

Scotland is facing further job losses as Covid lockdowns are reimposed and state help is reduced (Picture: Philip Toscano/PA)

The data shows the number of hours worked has plunged by 6.7 million hours from a year ago to 78 million hours a week, its lowest level for seven years when there were 179,000 fewer workers. So a lot more people are working an awful lot less and, on the basis of a 40-hour week, it could be the equivalent of around 170,000 jobs. If demand continues to be suppressed and state subsidies end, those jobs will go.

The latest Scottish Chambers of Commerce quarterly report shows all sectors fear the impact of higher taxation to pay for the pandemic response, which would threaten even more jobs, most of them in small-to-medium firms tightening their belts or going under altogether. Hospitality is bearing the brunt of the Scottish Government’s approach to the crisis, yet new analysis of the wildly differing infection rates across the world indicates that the common denominator is highly infectious people gathering in larger numbers in poorly ventilated, enclosed spaces.

If so, the blanket closure of restaurants, whether well-run or not, is punishing businesses which are not responsible for the spread, purely on the basis of simplicity of messaging.

The so-called “circuit-breaker” lockdown is more likely to wreak unemployment havoc than provide a breakthrough in the fight against Covid, yet government scientists, north and south of the border, seem incapable of any tactic other than reaching for the economic blunderbuss.