Employment in the Scottish construction industry fell by 1,000 to 173,000 during the third quarter of 2016, new official figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest.

Year-on-year, the number of people employed in Scotland’s building sector was up by 5,000.

Commenting on the figures, Scottish Building Federation managing director, Vaughan Hart, said: “Once again, these latest employment figures suggest there has been little in the way of immediate short-term impact on the Scottish construction sector from the vote to leave the European Union in June. However, we continue to have some concerns that the number of Scottish jobs supported by the industry remains substantially below historic levels prior to the 2008 recession.

“Targeting public capital spending towards affordable housing and energy efficiency offers the greatest potential to foster an increase in Scottish construction employment in the future. These are key areas of funding we would like to see prioritised when the Finance Secretary presents his draft Scottish budget for 2017-18 to the Scottish Parliament today.”