Manufacturing has been a key contributor to private sector employment growth within Scotland, according to Bank of Scotland chief economist Donald MacRae.

According to the latest data from the Bank of Scotland, employment at Scottish private sector firms increased for a sixth month in row in July with the bank’s employment index rising to 50.3 in July from 50.1 in June.

MacRae told Recruiter: “The jobs growth in Scotland is very marginal but there is a limited amount of jobs growth. The manufcaturing sector continues to see increased activity and in particular the export side of that. Export manufacturing new business has increased for a ninth consecutive month. Growth stems from anything from food manufacture to heavy engineering.

“One of the positive features of the PMI is companies did report increased activity with Asian economies which is good. The US economy is going to at best experience a slowdown and the Eurozone, which still accounts for the majority of exports, is probably going to have a slowdown as well.

“The Eurozone is made of a number of countries and not all exports go to the countries that are most affected such as Italy and Spain. We do export to France and Germany which are showing reasonable growth at the moment.

“The impact of all this is that confidence will be kept fairly low. It is already fairly low but it will prevent that from improving. There is going to be at best reduced growth in the American economy and the Eurozone.