Mik's Apak in Scotland: The UK is in Recession, How about Aberdeen?

My wife mentioned to me the other day that she has not seen any 2009-registered car on the road unlike the beginning of 2008. On the way home from work last week, the DJ on the radio was commenting that there are lines and lines of unsold new cars at the dealers in Aberdeen. He said that he will go down to the dealer with a bag of 2,000.00 pound cash, tell the dealer: "Here's 2,000.00 pound cash. I want the car so and so that you have on your parking lot."

The dealer will probably say: "What! That's a 20,000.00 pound car!"

Then he will reply: "Well, would you rather have 2,000.00 pound cash or that piece of metal rusting away on your lot?"

I think the DJ was joking ...

Aberdeen does not escape the recession that is hitting UK and Europe at the moment. However, Aberdeen apparently is in a stronger position to cope with this recession compared to many other UK cities according to the Centre for Cities as reported by Aberdeen Citizen free newspaper. Based on their analysis on 68 cities in the UK, Aberdeen is well placed to recover quickly unlike cities such as Belfast, Liverpool, Wigan and Hull due to the number of residents who were unemployed or had no qualifications.

40% of working age population in Aberdeen has a degree level qualification - only Edinburgh and Cambridge has a better percentage
Total number of people employed rose from 163,700 in 2006 t0 172,100 in 2007, ranking 5th overall for employment growth despite population dropped from 217,300 in 1997 to 209,300 in 2007.
Aberdeen is the UK hub of the North Sea oil industry and listed as the seventh most prosperous city

The down side, however, there has been very low growth in wages in the last few years and there are also a high number of people working in the financial services which has been badly hit.

So, the whole UK is currently not OK. My hope is that this will pass sooner rather than later. My fear is that its still getting worse before it gets better.