The 2015 jobs boom in Scotland

Edinburgh, October 2005, a photo by landhere on Flickr.

What will happen in 2015 if Scotland has just voted Yes to independence and if it’s looking increasingly likely that England will vote to pull the rUK out of the EU, and potentially even out of the Internal Market?

A large number of English companies are making their living trading with the EU, and it will be tempting for them to relocate to a country that will remain in the EU before it’s too late. Many countries are likely to benefit from this company exodus, e.g., Ireland and France, but surely the easiest option for many of these companies will be to relocate to Scotland (even if Scotland still hasn’t completed the negotiation of the EU membership terms and conditions at this point in time).

Because England is about ten times bigger than Scotland, this will have immense consequences for the Scottish economy, even if only a small percentage of English companies relocate north of the border. In conjunction with the other jobs created by independence, it’s likely that the years immediately after the independence referendum will be remembered as the great jobs boom.

PS: This blog posting was inspired by a chat with my mum in Denmark, who had been watching a programme with Uffe Ellemann and Mogens Lykketoft (both former foreign ministers of Denmark), in which they apparently touched upon this topic; however, I haven’t been able to find either a version of the programme that I can watch or a transcript. If you know more, please let me know!