Tag: ONS

ONS: youth unemployment up again

Posted on February 20, 2013 by - News

Jobcentre-plus-The job centre saw less footfall from October to December last year, with unemployment falling and the number of those in work rising, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Unemployment rates fell by 14,000 to 2.5 million, for the first time in two years, while the number of those in employment rose by 154,000 to 29.7 million. However, 163,000 were included as employed who were on government sponsored training programmes.

More than 580,000 people were counted as employed compared to this time last year. The ONS added that by the end of December there were 29.73 million UK people in employment. Of this, 73 percent were in full time work and the rest working part-time.

The ONS also found that the number of people in the UK claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance fell by 12,500 to 1.54 million, while some in work also saw a rise in wages, with the organisation finding total pay – including bonuses – rose by 1.4 percent and regular pay – excluding bonuses – rose by 1.3 percent from the same period in 2011.

In monetary terms this meant that average weekly earnings excluding
bonus payments stood at £445 in December 2012, before taxes and other deductions from gross pay, up from £439 a year earlier.

The statistics also show that youth unemployment increased by 11,000 to 974,000 – the highest rise for a year.

Other figures showed the number of self-employed workers increased by 25,000 to 4.2 million, and the number of people with more than one job increased by 41,000 to 1.1 million.

Permanent IT rolls down 12 percent

Posted on February 18, 2013 by - News

ukflagThe Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) has said that despite some relief in unemployment from the Office for National Statistics, in IT, permanent rolls have plunged more than 12 percent while temporary vacancies dropped almost seven percent.

The body said that year on year, to December 2012, there has been a fall of almost ten percent in permanent and temporary vacancies. IT professionals, if they can find the work, are increasingly doing temporary assignments, at 6.5 percent growth year on year.

Chief exec of APSCo, Ann Swain, said in a statement that the wider economic picture isn’t helping. Employers themselves don’t have the cash nor confidence to invest in permanent hires.

“However,” Swain pointed out, “recent data from the PMI Index has revealed that the services sector, which accounts for more than three quarters of economic output, has returned to growth”.

This, Swain said, makes her “bullish” about the first quarter of 2013 “from a hiring perspective”.

A skills shortage has been looming as well, according to a 2012 report from eSkills UK.  Employers were, at the time, looking for ICT managers, strategy, and planning professionals, as well as technical skills in SQL, C, C#, .NET and Java. But APSCo’s point is that with the uncertain economic backdrop, even companies who need permanent workers are worried that they will not be able to afford them.

Inflation unchanged. It’s a record

Posted on February 12, 2013 by - News

nippergonerConsumer price inflation was unchanged for the fourth month in the row this January, according to data from the Office for National Statistics, making it the longest period of no change since records began in 1996.

The ONS said a price boost in alcohol and tobacco was the main factor sending prices up, while there were slower rises for clothing and footwear. The latter rose 0.2 percent year on year, and were a 5.4 percent drop compared to the previous month.

Alcohol and tobacco prices were up nearly 10 percent – at 8.5 percent – year on year, and were also up an enormous 4.3 percent from the previous month as Christmas discounts wound up.

For miscellaneous goods and services, prices were down 0.7 percent compared to December.

The ONS’ Phil Gooding told the BBC that there were some other factors worth paying attention to. Utility price rises haven’t entered the index yet, asserting that there will be more to come – which will have an uptick on the figures.

“We also have to watch out for oil prices,” Gooding said. “These have been failling for four or five months but in January they started to rise again”.

Pressure on high street retail could also have a downward effect, Gooding said.

While salaries are largely frozen and unemployment figures are still drastically high, consumers are struggling to buy – which would put money back into the economy. Investec economist Victoria Clarke told the BBC that the “squeeze on real spending power remains very much in place” – but, some recent small increases in employment have put a bandaid on an otherwise worrying problem.

UK business “confidence” slips to record levels

Posted on February 11, 2013 by - News

ukflagAccountancy firm BDO has released a report that suggests business confidence is at a 21 year low in British history.

The company’s BDO Optimism Index, which has been running for 21 years and looks at emerging trends over the following two quarters, dropped to 88.9 in January compared to a reading of 90.3 in December, which is the eighth month in a row that the index has been below the growth metric of 95.0. According to BDO, this suggests trouble for Q1 2013, especially taking figures from the Office for National Statistics into account that threatened a triple dip recession.

BDO’s Output Index, which looks at and predicts turnover expectations, also fell – supporting a looming triple dip recession as it dropped from 93.1 to 92.3, again short of the 95.0 growth mark.

Although the outlook is bleak, BDO believes there are small signs of improving confidence, such as in the company’s Employment Index, which rose to 95.1 in January from 93.0 in December. This is the first time it has passed the 95.0 mark since last April, and also supported the ONS’ data on unemployment dropping in the three months to November. Manufacturer confidence should also be reason for some cautious optimism, which rose to 95.2 in January compared to 91.9 in December.

Partner at BDO LLP, Peter Hemington, said in a statement that despite strengthening in labour, “business confidence continues to weaken, and improved hiring intentions are not translating into growth plans”.

“It sees the damaging effects on businesses of five years’ zigzagging economic growth,” Hemington said, leaving them “wary” of making expansion or investment plans. A crucial tonic for bringing the economy out of a slump, according to BDO, will be providing growth incentives.

Triple dip recession threat leaves channel unbothered

Posted on January 25, 2013 by - Gossip, News

gosborneAccording to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the British economy shrank 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, reflecting wider economic woes in the Eurozone and further afield.

The figures were lower than expected for the last three months of 2012 and have sparked fears that, if the economy does not pick up, the UK will enter an unprecedented ‘triple dip recession’ – although arguably, Britain never left the recession at all. Chancellor George Osborne has warned that tough times still lie ahead for the country, but shirked advice from the International Monetary Fund that he and the Coalition should ease up on the policy of austerity.

On the GDP figures, Osborne said: “We have a reminder today that Britain faces a very difficult economic situation”.

The figures serve as a “reminder that last year was particularly difficult” and that the country faces problems at home “because of the debts built up over many years and problems abroad with the Eurozone, where we export most of our products, in recession”. The opposition accused Osborne and Prime Minister David Cameron of being “asleep at the wheel”, although the macroeconomic environment is unrelentingly difficult and both Labour and Conservatives differ on many minutae of policy – with the wider climate beyond their control.

GDP, meanwhile, was flat compared to the same time last year. Production output decreased by 1.8 percent for the quarter, negating a 0.7 percent increase between the second and third quarters. Service industry output was flat from Q3 into Q4, although that followed a 1.2 percent boost between Q2 and Q3 2012.

Britain enjoyed steady GDP growth from 2000 right up until the world markets crashed in 2008, and according to the ONS, the decline of economic conditions in 2008 and up until now has had a significant effect on construction and production – though the service sector wasn’t hit as hard, and is now slowly returning to 2008 levels.

In October last year, channel analyst house Canalys’ CEO, Steve Brazier, said that, despite the difficult economic climate, there is still opportunity in the channel. Although growth was not exactly meteoric, Brazier said that by carefully steering the ship, channel players could weather the storm, although the market will be tough.

 

Senior analyst at Canalys, Rachel Brindley, offered some thoughts to ChannelEye on just what channel players can do to push through the crisis. She tells us the situation isn’t exactly all doom and gloom.

“Some partners will struggle if this economy goes into a triple dip recession,” Brindley said, “but there is a chance that it could happen. That being said, a lot are well placed – those who focus on customer service, keeping existing customers very close, growing their services business an diversifying their portfolio into things like managed services and data centres, will rise to the difficult times we’ve been going through”.

“Generally,” Brindley said, “those that focus on their customers, and diversify their business away from traditional hardware and box shifting will come through OK, it will come down to careful planning and taking opportunities in spaces like the data centre and looking at what’s going on in the networking space”.

High street footfall drops

Posted on January 22, 2013 by - News

highShoppers on the UK’s high street are continuing to decline, recent figures from the British Retail Consortium have shown.

One retail analyst has suggested the drop is partly thanks to a vicious cycle, where stores are forced to focus on their online efforts – but neglect shop fronts as a result.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) released figures showing that shopper numbers had fallen by 1.2 percent in December, compared to the same time in 2011.

Shopping centres reported the greatest fall with a 2.8 percent decline, followed by out-of-town retailers, with a one percent fall, while high street locations saw footfall stumble by 0.5 percent.

The BRC said that the decline for the month as a whole came despite a rise of 7.5 percent in shopper numbers in the immediate week before Christmas.

The figures coincided with data released by the Office for National Statistics last week, which found that, although UK retail sales grew 0.3 percent in December, this figure was the lowest rise on record since 1998.

Patrick O’Brien, a retail analyst at Verdict, said there are a number of factors at play.

“Some shoppers stay away by online shopping, and this has let to retail chains investing less in their stores which in turn has made them less attractive creating a vicious circle,” he said, speaking with ChannelEye. “As a result, some high streets are looking very shabby indeed, and shoppers are tending to make one big trip to destination shopping centres such as Westfield Statford instead of several trips to the high street.”

ONS data shows low retail growth for Xmas 2012

Posted on January 18, 2013 by - News

bromleyhsUK retail sales grew 0.3 percent in December, the Office for National Statistics has revealed, which is the lowest rise on record since 1998.

There was an upward tick in retail from August 2011, however, in December 2012 the growth was lower than expected. The quantity of goods grew 0.3 percent from the same time last year, while overall amounts spent was estimated to have grown 0.7 percent.

Except for December 2010, when retail was severely affected by bad weather, December 2012 was the lowest growth since 1998, which was at -0.4 percent. Comparing the month with November 2012, both quantity bought and amount spent dropped by 0.1 percent.

Online sales were 1.2 percent higher compared with December 2011, but compared with November, the ONS says the proportion of web sales fell at a slower rate than in previous years – which is seasonally unusual. Retailers told the ONS that online shoppers helped with overall sales and made up a larger proportion of sales in December than expected.

According to data from Experian, December 2012 was the busiest Christmas ever for online retailers, with plenty of consumers going online on Boxing Day and Christmas to spend festive cash and vouchers. There was a 30 percent growth in visits since last year.

Year on year growth from non-store retailing and non-food stores was cancelled out by large drops in spending at food stores and petrol stations. Overall, the estimated weekly spend in all retail was £8.5 billion for the month, compared to £8.4 billion in December 2011.