This blog has moved

This blog is now located at http://theretaildatabase.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://theretaildatabase.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

Do not be fooled by unemployment figures

The unemployment figures released yesterday provided mixed headlines this morning.  Some of the press focused upon the fall in unemployment and 30,000 fewer people claiming unemployment benefit.  These are good figures that provide some signs that the recession and the downturn are fading.  However as always the devil is in the detail.

What the headlines don't tend to indicate is that although unemployment fell, so did the number of people in employment.  Therefore the number of people working, earning and producing goods and services in the economy actually declined.

The two paragraphs above may seem inconsistent.  They are not.  The main reason that both unemployment and employment fell is that the total number of people in the labour market has been falling as the inactivity rate increased by 150,000 in the quarter and the number of overseas workers decline 100,000 in the year.  The rise in the inacitivy rate was driven by a 100,000 increase in the number of people registered as students.  Although this is preferable to redundancy, the majority of these students are not attending university or enrolling in rigorous higher education courses, many of these courses have been set up in the past year in the face of recession and are well known to provide little in the way of actual benefit to either the individual or wider society.  A cynical person might even argue that these courses are a very useful political tool to keep down the official unemployment figures. 

Finally the labour market stats also continue to show that it is the public sector that is creating the additional jobs, not the private sector.  Given the necessity for the government to cut its deficit, this is a temporary solution, and likely to be reversed.  Without a return of private sector jobs growth there will be no recovery in the labour market.

Its not all doom and gloom out there anymore and things are slowly getting better, but as ever it is easy to get carried away when misinterpreting monthly data!

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=12

Centre Court Shopping Centre now on TRdb

I popped into Centre Court this weekend to pick up a few things before my wife went away for the week so I thought I would put it on The Retail Database.

Its a nice place and doesn't seem to be struggling too much in the current economic environment.  Very few empty shops.

I took the picture below on my Android phone.

Link to the centre is here: http://www.theretaildatabase.com/retail%20location.php?ID=91

Centre Court Shopping Centre is located at the heart of Wimbledon in south west London. The shopping centre is named after the famous tennis court where the Wimbledon tennis championship is played.

The shopping centre is anchored by a medium sized Debenhams. Other stores include an H&M, Hotel Chocolat, Gap and Boots.

There are also two small format supermarkets in the centre a Tesco Metro and a Marks & Spencer simply food. 

Revised GDP figures and economic forecasts

As expected the GDP was revised up to 0.3% in the final quarter of 2009 and could possibly be revised up further at the final reading.  The second reading is based upon 60% of the data needed to make a complete reading, compared to 40% for the first reading and 80% at the final reading.

For further information see: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=192

It is interesting to note that 0.3% is within the forecast estimates given by economists before the first reading came out.  When the preliminary reading was 0.1% (outside of the forecast range) commentators in the press were quick to belittle the economics profession and the forecasts, questioning their competency.  I think it is probably time that economists questioned the competency of the press, who fail time and time again to understand statistics and their limitations.

Worse business investment puts Q4 GDP revision in doubt...

Tomorrow's second reading of the Q4 GDP figure has been widely expected to show that the UK emerged from recession at a quicker pace than the 0.1% originally shown in the preliminary reading.

Although analysts weren't expected a dramatic change in the number, a reading of around 0.2% or 0.3% would have given them more comfort for the outlook of the recovery.

However, the likelihood of tomorrow's second reading showing an upwards revision was put in doubt today by news from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) showing business investment falling sharply in the final quarter of the year.  According to the Preliminary reading of business investment in Q4 2009, investment fell 5.8%, compared to a fall of 1.8% in Q3 2009.

Again a health warning must be placed on these figures as they are only preliminary readings and therefore are highly likely to be changed.

For more information: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/bi0210.pdf

There remains a good possibility that GDP will be revised up tomorrow.  Nevertheless these figures suggest that business was not yet confident enough to spend money in the final months of 2009 and were hoarding their cash in anticipation of things continuing to be bumpy in 2010.

Another sign of a better final quarter

Manufacturing output was reported to have grown strongly in the final month of 2009 which provides further evidence to suggest that the UK economy emerged from recession at a stronger than originally report pace in the  final quarter of last year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8508020.stm

In other news today the Bank of England continued to sound cautious on the outlook for GDP growth but warned that in the short term inflation would continue to rise.  This is not surprising given the rapid fall in prices twelve month's ago and rising VAT in January 2010.  They did not give much away as to when interest rates will start to rise...but the end of this year (November) is the best guess.

BRC Retail Sales for January

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) retail sales index for January was released today, showing like-for-like retail sales values falling 0.7% in January 2010 compared to the same month twelve month's earlier.


http://www.brc.org.uk/details04.asp?id=1694


This is not a surprise given both the snow and the rise in VAT.  It is worth remembering that one month's data does not make a trend, particularly as the BRC index is a comparison with a single month twelve month's earlier.  If last year's sales were very good that month then this can make today's sales look disproportionately weak.


I personally would avoid this melodramatic statement:



Stephen Robertson, Director General, British Retail Consortium, said:

“An awful start to the year and in stark contrast to an upbeat December. This is the worst January sales growth in the 15 years we’ve been running the survey. It was a month of two halves with a focus on must-haves early on. The coldest January since 1987 boosted food sales at the start of the month, as shoppers stocked up. But food sales growth melted with the snow. The month as a whole was significantly weaker than December.

“Most non-food sectors had a poor start, though nearly all recovered towards the end of the month. Furniture and DIY were worst hit as customers put off buying non-essentials. The VAT change brought some sales forward to December, but customers are becoming cautious again in the face of economic and political uncertainty. Retailers will be hoping these results are mainly a snow induced blip, rather than an indication of further difficulties.”

389RREN5PYVE