Northern Ireland Economic Output Statistics

The economic output statistics were published today by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency.

Services Sector Output

Output in the services sector increased in real terms (by 0.7%) over the first quarter of 2018 (January to March), with output at its highest point since Quarter 3 (Q3) 2008. NI output in this sector is 4.2% lower than the NI series high (Q4 2006). Growth over the year (1.1%) in the sector was just below UK growth of 1.2% over the equivalent period (Q1 2017 to Q1 2018).
 

The quarterly and annual growth in the services sector was driven by growth in the Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles; accommodation and food service activities sector (3.9% over the quarter and 2.5% over the year) and in the Transport, storage, information and communication sector (0.8% over the quarter and 3.5% over the year). In contrast there was a 5.9% decline over the quarter and 3.5% decline over the year in the Other services sector (this sector includes other activities not covered elsewhere - education, health & social work, arts, entertainment and recreation and other services) and a 0.3% decline over the quarter and the year in the Business services and finance sector.

In the longer term, when the most recent four quarters are compared to the previous four quarters, both the NI and UK services sectors reported annualised growth of 1.3% to Quarter 1 2018.

Production Sector Output

Production output in NI fell marginally over the first quarter (by 0.2%) but sharply over the year (by 5.1%). The UK production sector reported an increase in output over the quarter (0.6%) and year (2.0%).
 

The change in the IOP is caused by quarterly increases in the Electricity, Gas, Steam and Air Conditioning Supply sector and the Water Supply, Sewerage and Waste Management (including Recycling) sector of 1.4% and 5.6% respectively, offset by a 13.1% fall in the Mining and Quarrying sector, (which accounts for 2.5% of the index), and a 0.9% fall in the Manufacturing sector. The Manufacturing sector itself contained quarterly subsector rises, but falls in the indices for Manufacture of Food, Beverages and Tobacco products; Manufacture of Basic Metals & Fabricated Metal Products; and Manufacturing of Computer, Electronic, Electrical & Optical Products (5.7%, 3.2% and 3.5% respectively).

Looking at a longer term trend, when the most recent four quarters are compared to the previous four quarters, output in the NI production sector fell by 4.6%, with the whole of the UK reporting growth on this basis of 1.7%.

Commentary

The services sector has continued to grow with annual growth recorded for the last fourteen reporting periods. This is in contrast to the production sector where there has been decreases reported in four of the last five quarters back to the beginning of 2017. Over this period the labour market has continued to improve with further growth in employee jobs and unemployment close to the series record low point.
 

Output in the services sector increased in real terms (by 0.7%) over the first quarter of 2018, with output at its highest point since Q3 2008. Production sector output remained broadly flat (down 0.2% over the quarter in real terms) but is still 9.3% above the minimum recorded point in Q3 2009.

In the labour market, the unemployment rate fell over the year and rose over the quarter to 3.3% which is the third lowest on record. The employment rate (February – April 2018) increased over the year and fell over the quarter to 69.7%. At 27.9% the economic inactivity rate remained steady over the quarter but has increased 0.7 percentage points since the same time last year.

The total number of employee jobs increased over the quarter (6,090 jobs) and over the year (18,610 jobs) to a series high of 763,440. The annual growth has been driven by an increase in private sector jobs, and an increase in services sector jobs.