One in ten Scottish workers will be unemployed by 2016, says report Unemployment in Scotland will continue to grow for another five years as the economy continues to struggle, a report has claimed. Scotland will not see unemployment rates peak until it hits nearly 10 per cent in 2016, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said in its latest report. Unemployment levels will grow from 8.8 per cent in 2012 to 9.4 per cent in 2013, 9.6 per cent in 2014, and level off at 9.7 per cent in 2015 and 2016. By comparison, the UK average would fair somewhat better, levelling out at 9.2 per cent from 2014 to 2016. One of the key reasons Scotland is so vulnerable to the downturn is it has a high number of people employed in the public sector, the report said. The latest claims are a more pessimistic amendment to their October update. Economist Rob Harbron, one of the report's authors, said the UK could expect further pain in almost every region, particularly those with a high dependency on public sector employment. He said: "With almost one in four workers employed by the public sector, jobs in Scotland are at particular risk to government cutbacks. Weak economic conditions look set to continue across the UK over the next five years and as a result, Scottish economic growth is expected to be only slow in the years to 2016, with the economy expanding by just 1.6 per cent a year by 2016, well below pre-financial crisis trends. Sluggish job creation in the private sector, combined with public sector job losses, look set to force the unemployment rate up from 8.8 per cent in 2012 to 9.7 per cent by the end of 2016. A Scottish Labour spokesman said: "This makes very grim reading because behind every statistic there is the tragedy of a person losing their job and a family losing their income. There is no doubt the Tory government is cutting too hard and too fast. Finance Secretary John Swinney said Scotland's economy was outperforming that of the UK as a whole in terms of GDP growth, higher employment and lower economic inactivity. He said: "Scotland needs the full economic and financial powers of independence so that we can do even more to boost the economy and jobs. If this paper tells us anything it underlines the importance of achieving a "yes" vote in the autumn 2014 independence referendum, so that we have all the job-creating powers at the disposal of the Scottish Parliament and government, instead of being on the receiving end of Westminster economic mismanagement. "While the UK economy is now in a "double-dip" recession, the Scottish Government is doing everything in its current powers to avoid this in Scotland."