Author-ANDREW MCRAE
It doesn’t matter if you were born in Estonia, Ethiopia or even England, we need you to start up your business in Scotland.
People born outside Scotland – including elsewhere in the UK as well as the rest of the world – account for about a quarter of firms started up north of the border. And immigrant-led businesses, firms run by people born outside the UK, contribute £13bn to the Scottish economy and provide 107,000 jobs.
But there’s an opportunity to attract more would-be entrepreneurs.
Statistics the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) compiled show that in the past 20 years, Scotland’s business community grew by an impressive 46 per cent.
But over the same timeframe, the number of UK businesses grew by 63 per cent. While these figures are distorted by London – where more businesses were started in the last decade than currently operate in Scotland – that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and close this enterprise gap.
For a start, we need to make sure our future immigration system works for Scotland.
It is easy to understand that a faster growing population with more working age people feeds through to business population growth.
Between 2000 and 2018, Scotland’s population increased by 7.4 per cent and the UK’s population increased by 12.8 per cent. This trend could partially account for the disparity in entrepreneurship.
Unfortunately the measures outlined in the UK government’s immigration White Paper do little to reverse this trend, and may exacerbate the problem.
We need to see a change in the approach from the UK government to ensure business-minded people face no barriers making Scotland a home for their operations.
Why’s this so important? Research FSB conducted with the Hunter Centre shows all migrants – including immigrants from outside the UK, but also migrants born elsewhere in the UK, returnee Scots and people who have moved within Scotland – are more likely to start a business.
Migrant entrepreneurs are more likely to have postgraduate qualifications, family business experience, export ambitions and higher growth ambitions
A full 28,000 enterprises in Scotland’s three largest cities are run by immigrants. And in rural Scotland, migrants are more likely to be entrepreneurial than locals – driving both economic activity and community sustainability.
