THE SNP have called out BBC Scotland after the broadcaster wrongly suggested that Scottish unemployment rates had risen.
The BBC Scotland News account drew criticism after it posted a story about UK-wide statistics showing a rise in unemployment – without reporting that the opposite was true for Scotland.
The account wrote on social media: “Unemployment rises as pay growth slows again.”
It linked to a story which reported: “The UK's unemployment rate has risen, official figures suggest, while pay growth continues to slow.
“The rate of unemployment stood at 4.3% in the three months to September, up from 4% the previous quarter.”
🔍 This article shared by BBC Scotland rightly states that the unemployment rate in the UK has risen. 🏴 But it doesn’t mention that the same figures show that Scotland’s unemployment rate has declined by 1.1% in the same period. https://t.co/Unz698DMnf
— The SNP Media (@theSNPMedia) November 13, 2024
However, the figures for Scotland from the same period (July to September 2024 compared against April to June 2024) showed that the unemployment rate north of the Border was 3.3 per cent – a drop of 1.1 percentage points.
The BBC's article did not mention Scotland or the Scottish rate at all.
Responding to the BBC Scotland post, the SNP Media account wrote: “This article shared by BBC Scotland rightly states that the unemployment rate in the UK has risen.
“But it doesn’t mention that the same figures show that Scotland’s unemployment rate has declined by 1.1% in the same period.”
The SNP account then added a link to the source of the figures on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) website.
SNP MSP James Dornan had also responded to the BBC Scotland post, writing: “Could someone explain to me what the 'Scotland' bit means here please? I'm a bit confused.”
Other users also questioned why BBC Scotland had not reported the drop in unemployment in Scotland, instead only reporting the UK-wide rise.
One wrote: “It’s mind-blowing that the Scottish BBC News page tweeted this UK-wide piece yesterday and has still failed to qualify that Scotland’s unemployment rate fell by 1.1%.”
Others highlighted that STV’s report on the same statistics had been headlined on the fall in unemployment north of the Border.
Welcoming the news at the time, Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes said: “Despite low growth across the UK, Scotland’s economy is proving resilient with GDP per person rising over the last two quarters and payrolled employees at close to record levels."
A BBC spokesperson said: "Our social media feed does post UK-wide stories from time to time. We reported the Scottish unemployment figures in our news output on television and radio."
