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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Graeme Wearden

Brexit ‘productivity penalty’ is £1,000 per household, says BoE official; Europe to avoid recession – as it happened

United States United Kingdom BDO Eurogroup
Waterloo Bridge and the City of London skyline.
Waterloo Bridge and the City of London skyline. Photograph: Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

Closing summary

Time for a recap

A Bank of England policy maker has warned that UK business investment growth was “stopped in its tracks” by Brexit.

Jonathan Haskel, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee, said that this created a productivity penalty of £29bn – or £1,000 per household.

UK businesses began 2023 in a pessimistic mood, according to the latest survey of the economy from BDO. It found that optimism fell last month, as firms experienced a sharp decline in growth as customers cut back.

There’s better news from the eurozone, though – the EC has raised its growth forecasts. It now predicts the European Union will avoid a recession this year, as the fall in gas prices has helped the economy.

Staff at Amazon’s fulfilment centre in Coventry are to walk out on February 28, March 2 and from March 13 to 17, as industrial action at the company intensifies.

But a long-running London bus dispute involving drivers employed by Abellio has ended, after workers accepted a pay rise worth 18%.

Here’s the rest of today’s stories:

As expected, the US stock market has opened a little higher ahead of Tuesday’s inflation report which is expected to show a slowdown in price rises.

The Dow Jones industrial average, which tracks 30 large US companies, has gained 49 points or 0.15% to 33,919 points. The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite is 0.2% higher.

Shares in Manchester United are up 3.6%, at $24.40, following a Bloomberg report that Qatar investors could make an offer for the English football giant in the coming days.

Updated

London bus drivers accept 18% pay rise

There’s been a breakthrough in a long-running industrial action in London.

Abellio bus workers, largely based in the south and west of London, have accepted a pay offer which will see drivers with over two years’ service being paid £18 an hour. This equates to a pay increase of 18% on the basic rate, the Unite union says.

Over 1,800 Abellio workers took more than 20 days of strike action, Unite says, including three days of strike action in late November and strike action in December.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham says:

“This is an important pay victory. Workers have stood firm and with the support of their union, Unite, they have secured a richly deserved pay increase.

Unite’s constant focus on the jobs, pay and conditions of our members is continuing to deliver increased pay awards for workers.”

Updated

Amazon has insisted that only a “tiny proportion” of its workforce are involved in the strikes announced today.

A spokesperson for the e-commerce giant says:

“In fact, according to the verified figures, only a fraction of 1% of our UK employees voted in the ballot – and that includes those who voted against industrial action.

“We appreciate the great work our teams do throughout the year and we’re proud to offer competitive pay which starts at a minimum of between £10.50 and £11.45 per hour, depending on location.

“This represents a 29% increase in the minimum hourly wage paid to Amazon employees since 2018.

“Employees are also offered comprehensive benefits that are worth thousands more – including private medical insurance, life assurance, subsidised meals and an employee discount, to name a few.”

Wall Street is set to open slightly higher, as investors brace for Tuesday’s US inflation report.

Amazon workers announce series of strikes at warehouse in pay dispute

Amazon workers have announced a series of strikes at one of the company’s warehouses in a dispute over pay, PA Media report.

The GMB said more than 350 staff at the fulfilment centre in Coventry will walk out on February 28, March 2 and from March 13 to 17.

The union said its members made history last month by becoming the first Amazon workers in the UK to strike in their campaign for a pay rate of £15 an hour.

Amanda Gearing, GMB senior organiser, said the “unprecedented” strikes showed the anger among Amazon workers in Coventry.

She said:

“They work for one of the richest companies in the world, yet they have to work round the clock to keep themselves afloat.

“It’s sickening that Amazon workers in Coventry will earn just 8p above the national minimum wage in April 2023.

“Amazon bosses can stop this industrial action by doing the right thing and negotiating a proper pay rise with workers.”

The pound has made a decent start to the new week.

Sterling has gained almost half a cent against the US dollar, back to $1.21. Against the euro, it’s up a third of a eurocent at €1.133.

The currency could be benefitting from last Friday’s news that Britain has avoided falling into recession. But there are forecasts that the pound could weaken against the euro:

Updated

Back in the City, shares in UK courier firm DX Group have fallen after it was hit by a legal claim of corporate espionage.

The Sunday Times reported yesterday that Sheffield-based logistics firm Tuffnells was alleging that several DX Group employees, who were former employees of Tuffnells, had conspired to obtain daily customer service reports.

Tuffnells has lodged its corporate espionage claim in the High Court, claiming that a traffic clerk at a London warehouse was asked to leak confidential corporate information to a rival in exchange for a £50 payment from a delivery driver.

Today, DX Group told shareholders that it had received a claim from Tuffnell Parcels Express last Friday afternoon, and that it had investigated the issue last year.

DX added:

The Group intends to defend its position robustly and will respond to the claim in due course.

Shares in DX fell by over 10% at one stage today, and are currently down around 6%.

Jonathan Haske’s comments about the impact of Brexit come less than two weeks after the Bank of England said the economic hit from leaving the EU had arrived sooner than thought.

As Bloomberg points out:

At its February Monetary Policy Report, Threadneedle Street warned that business investment is “very subdued” and that the trade hit from Brexit had happened even sooner than it first feared.

And last week, another MPC policymaker – Catherine Mann – suggested Brexit had made the UK’s inflation problem worse, as new trade barriers had pushed up costs.

The Office for National Statistics has also reported this morning that UK renters are around three times more likely to face energy and food insecurity than property owners.

The ONS recorded that, over the four weeks to December 18, adults who rented their homes were 2.9 times more likely to experience some form of energy insecurity than those who own their own properties.

It added that renters were 3.2 times more likely to have suffered food insecurity.

The report also indicated older people are less likely to face energy security problems than younger adults, saying:

Adults aged 30 to 64 years had between 1.5 and 1.8 higher odds of experiencing some form of energy insecurity than those aged 65 years and over; while adults aged 16 to 64 years had between 2.0 and 4.6 higher odds of experiencing some form of food insecurity than those aged 65 years and over.

Updated

New figures from the Office for National Statistics have highlighted the shortage of healthcare workers that is hurting the UK economy.

In December 2022, across the UK there were more online adverts for healthcare jobs than for other professions, the ONS reports.

Healthcare vacancies were the most common option in 88.8% of local authorities, it adds, while there was higher demand for “information and communication technology” professions in the other 11.2% of the country.

The ONS says that this increase is part of a longer-term increase in demand.

Despite raised relative demand during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, since 2017 their share of online job adverts has been increasing consistently.

The increased share of healthcare profession job adverts, over the last year, was through an increase in the share of adverts for care assistants, nursing, and specialised nurses.

The ONS says it analyed data from jobs site Textkernel. It found that the number of online job adverts had more than halved year-on-year by the end of 2022, as companies cut back on hiring.

A chart showing how online job adverts across the UK from Textkernel data have declined by 55.9% between December 2021 and December 2022

BoE official says Brexit productivity penalty is £1,000 per household

Back in the UK, a Bank of England policy maker has warned that a wave of business investment was “stopped in its tracks” by the Brexit vote nearly seven years ago.

Jonathan Haskel, an external member of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, said an interview with The Overshoot that business investment had “basically flattened out” after the 2016 referendum.

That drop in business investment growth, the Bank has calculated, has created a productivity penalty of about 1.3% of GDP.

This is based on what would have happened if investment carried on growing at the pre-referendum rate.

Haskel explained to the Overshoot:

That 1.3% of GDP is about £29 billion, or roughly £1000 per household.

At the end of the forecast period, the penalty goes up to something like 2.8% of GDP, which is very close to the 3.2% number we found using the totally different reduced form methodology based on goods trade volumes.

This is a timely point, after The Observer reported that a cross-party summit bringing together leading leavers and remainers has been held, to try to address and remedy the failings of Brexit.

This has prompted Lord Frost, the UK’s former chief Brexit negotiator, to urge ministers to “fully and enthusiastically embrace the advantages of Brexit”. Frost claims the meeting is part of a plot to unravel the deal he negotiated.

Haskel, though, insists that the UK’s productivity slowdown “goes back to Brexit”.

Asked why the UK has had a more severe productivity slowdown than other countries since the financial crisis, he says this is partly due to the country’s large financial sector.

But, Haskel adds:

If you look in the period up to 2016, it’s true that we had a bigger slowdown in productivity up to 2016, but we had a lot of investment.

We had a big boom between 2012-ish to 2016. But then investment just plateaued from 2016, and we dropped to the bottom of G7 countries.

Haskel also suggests that delays in the NHS are responsible for the rise in economic inactivity, as more people leave the labour force.

He says:

There are basically two competing hypotheses here in the U.K. One is that actually lots of people have just retired. They were not active before and they’ve decided to give it up and just retire. Um, that’s hypothesis one. Hypothesis two is, is related to ill health.

The National Health Service here has had very long waiting lists. It’s proved to be very, very difficult for a very overstretched health service to deal with Covid and deal with the aftermath. We are finding some weak correlations between regional increases in inactivity and regional increases in self-reported ill health within the U.K.

You can read the full interview here:

The Bank of England’s Jonathan Haskel on Inflation, Productivity, Brexit, and More

Updated

France’s economy is forecast to grow by 0.6% this year, a slowdown on the 2.6% growth racked up in 2022.

Today’s EC Winter Forecasts says the easing of inflation pressures will help the French economy:

The French economy is projected to keep gaining traction until the end of 2024 as energy and food inflation moderate, and core inflation progressively declines.

This gradual acceleration is expected to be driven by domestic demand, with a mostly preserved household purchasing power over the forecast horizon resulting from government measures, dynamic wages, and a very favourable labour market.

Updated

This chart, from the EC’s Winter Forecasts, shows how gas consumption fell last autumn, helping to boost gas storage levels:

European gas consumption and storage data

The EC fears that Germany, Europe’s largest economy, will contract at the start of this year.

The Winter Forecasts say:

Despite a recent improvement in confidence, the [German] economy is expected to suffer another mild decline in early 2023 as energy prices for households are still increasing and government support for January and February will only be disbursed in March.

Meanwhile export growth is set to slow down dragged by weak foreign demand.

For 2023 as a whole, Germany’s economy is only expected to grow by 0.2%, one of the weakest performance expected – but rather better than the 0.6% contraction forecast three months ago.

In 2022, today’s report says, Germany’s GDP rose by 1.8%, helped by the reopening of the economy after Covid-19 restrictions. But it shrank by 0.2% in the October-December quarter.

Although the outlook for Europe is better than expected, this doesn’t mean it is “positive” overall, commissioner Paolo Gentolini adds.

He points out that today’s new Winter Forecasts still show growth below 1% this year [at 0.8% in the EU and 0.9% in the euro area].

Inflation is still expected to be quite high [6.4% in the EU this year, and 5.6% in the eurozone].

Commissioner Paulo Gentolini is now taking questions about today’s winter forecasts.

Q: What is the main threat to these forecasts, and what impact will the increase in interest rates by the European Central Bank have?

The main risk comes from geopolitical tensions, and the evolution of the Ukraine war, Genolini explains.

The EC hopes that developments in the war will have a “positive influence” on the forecasts, but this is not easy to predict now, Gentolini says.

The coming winter could be difficult for energy, he suggests, adding that Europe has already shown in recent months that it can tackle challenges together.

It’s possible that measures, such as the common buying of gas, are more effective than expected, he suggests.

The tightening of monetary policy by the European Central Bank will have an impact on the economy, he adds, but will also have a very positive effect by reducing inflation.

At the start of February, the ECB raised interest rates by 0.5%, taking its key rate to 2.5%, the highest since 2008.

The threat of gas shortages appears less serious than a few months ago, but can still not be dismissed, today’s Winter Forecasts warn.

The EC says that the gas crisis has eased, thanks to alternative supply sources being found, the rise in gas storage levels, increased energy efficiency, and the drop in fas prices.

But, it warns that geopolitical tensions could drive has prices up again, while China’s reopening could lead to higher demand for gas.

That could make it harder to refill gas storage in time for next winter, the report says:

Refilling of gas shortages ahead of the winter of 2023-2024 may therefore pose more challenges than expected in this forecast.

Ireland expected to lead recovery with 4.9% growth

Ireland is expected to be the fastest-growing EU member this year, today’s Winter Forecasts show.

Ireland’s GDP is forecast to grow by 4.9% in 2023, stronger than the 3.2% forecast in the autumn forecasts three months ago.

Last year, Ireland’s economy is forecast to have grown by 12.2%, a strong performance, and falling inflation should help the economy this year, the EC says.

There isn’t, yet, any visible that job cuts in Big Tech have hit Ireland, today’s report says. But, there is uncertainty over how trade will develop, due to the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol.

Here are the EC’s new forecasts, compared to last autumn’s forecasts three months ago.

The EC’s latest economic forecasts

Updated

Gentolini says the European economy has shown “remarkable resilience to the headwinds unleashed by Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine”.

He tells reporters in Brussels that Europe achieved a “positive growth surprise” in the second half of last year.

The slowdown in the third quarter of 2022 was milder than expected, then the economy stagnated in Q4 rather than contracting by 0.5% as expected.

These are “quite outstanding outturns”, Gentolini says, given the pressures on Europe last year.

He adds that the estimated 3.5% growth achieved in 2022 is better than the US and China achieved (the UK, though, grew by 4%).

Gentolini adds that the risks to the EC’s new economic forecast are “balanced”.

Past risks due to the pandemic and gas shortages have “ebbed significantly”, there is still very high uncertainty related to the war in Ukraine, and to geopolitical tensions.

EC: Headline inflation has peaked

Headline inflation in Europe has peaked, and is set to decline further, commissioner Paolo Gentolini declares.

This is due to “rapidly declining energy prices” he says.

Inflation in the European Union is now forecast to drop, from 9.2% in 2022 to 6.4% in 2023, and fall again to 2.8% in 2024.

[that would still be above the European Central Bank’s target, of 2%, though].

Updated

Gentiloni: Europe to narrowly escape technical reecession

Paolo Gentiloni, European Commissioner for Economy, is presenting today’s Winter Forecasts now.

He starts with the good news:

The EU economy entered this year on a healthier footing than expected, and looks set to escape recession.

There have been “a number of positive developments” since last autumn, Gentolini says, such as the fall in European gas prices below pre-Ukraine war levels – due (he says) to demand restraints, diversification of supply sources, and mild weather.

Better than previously expected growth at the end of 2022, and improving economic sentiment, indicate the European economy is thus set to “narrowly escape” the technical recession projected in the autumn, Gentolini says.

[A technical recession is two quarters of negative growth in a row].

Eurozone growth in 2022 is forecast to be 3.5%, up from 3.2% forecast before, Gentolini adds.

The European Commission’s new winter forecasts warn, though, that Europe faces ‘strong’ headwinds – including high inflation and higher interest rates.

The EC says:

Consumers and businesses continue to face high energy costs and core inflation (headline inflation excluding energy and unprocessed food) was still rising in January, further eroding households’ purchasing power.

As inflationary pressures persist, monetary tightening is set to continue, weighing on business activity and exerting a drag on investment.

EC: Europe to avoid recession this year

NEWSFLASH: Europe’s economy is expected to avoid falling into recession this year, the European Commission says, with inflation now forecast to be lower than feared.

The EC has just released its new winter forecasts, and has hiked its forecasts for growth in 2023. It no longer expects a recession this year.

Instead, forecasts now expect eurozone GDP to rise by 0.9% during 2023, up from the 0.3% predicted three months ago.

Announcing the forecasts, the EC says:

Almost one year after Russia launched its war of aggression against Ukraine, the EU economy entered 2023 on a better footing than projected in autumn.

The wider European Union is expected to grow by 0.8% (again, up from 0.3% expected before).

The EC says:

Both areas are now set to narrowly avoid the technical recession that was anticipated for the turn of the year. The forecast also slightly lowers the projections for inflation for both 2023 and 2024.

The EC says that “favourable developments” since its Autumn Forecast was released in November have improved the growth outlook for this year.

Crucially, wholesale gas prices have fallen “well below prewar levels”, it says, with gas storage levels above the seasonal average of past years.

Also, the EU labour market has continued to perform strongly, with the unemployment rate remaining at its all-time low of 6.1% until the end of 2022.

Confidence is improving and January surveys suggest that economic activity is also set to avoid a contraction in the first quarter of 2023, the Commission adds.

The growth rate forecast for 2024 remains unchanged, at 1.5% for the euro area and 1.6% for the EU.

Updated

European stock markets have opened slightly higher.

The UK’s FTSE 100 index of blue-chip shares is up 18 points or 0.25% at 7901 points. Energy company Centrica is leading the risers, up 1.6%. Centrica is expected to report a record £3bn annual profit later this week.

The smaller FTSE 250 index of medium-sized companies has inched up by 0.1%, while the pan-European Stoxx 600 has gained 0.26%.

Richard Hunter, head of markets at interactive investor, says investors are pondering the continued resilience of the US economy, ahead of new US inflation data due tomorrow.

The FTSE100 has benefited from a switch towards defensive companies by investors, Hunter reports.

Such a fallback option has served the UK’s primary index well over the challenges of the last year as investors hunker down in the face of potential recessionary and particularly inflationary pressures. The market’s initial move higher was achieved despite another small raid on the housebuilding sector where rising interest rates, concerns over mortgage availability and affordability and recently cautious comments from some of the leading names have added to the mix. Even so, the FTSE100 remains ahead by 6% so far this year and still one of the favoured global investment destinations.

The more domestically focused FTSE250 was largely flat in early trade, ahead of a week which will see further UK releases on unemployment, inflation and retail sales. If these figures and indeed the outlook can continue to be less disastrous than some had feared, this index could also add to the gain of 6.2% which it has achieved so far this year.”

MJ Hudson says auditor resigns over "lost trust" in management

Troubled asset management company MJ Hudson has sunk deeper into crisis, with its auditor resigning.

MJ Hudson told the City this morning that it learned late on Friday night that its auditor, Ernst & Young LLP, was tendering its resignation with immediate effect.

The letter of resignation from EY states that:

“we are ceasing to hold office because we have lost trust and confidence in the Company’s management and those charged with governance, and in their ability, along with your finance team, to provide us with accurate and reliable information for audit”.

In October, MJ Hudson announced that it was “engaged in discussions with its auditors” regarding significant potential adjustments in relation to its 2022 financial results.

Then in December, MJ Hudson suspended its finance boss, warned it would not be able to complete its full-year audit by the end of December. Trading in its shares was suspended then too.

Sky News, which broke the news of EY’s resignation last night, says the move is “highly unusual and will underline growing concerns about MJ Hudson’s finances.”

UK firms plan biggest pay rises since 2012 to fill staff gaps

Despite the economic squeeze, UK companies are planning to lift wages this year at the fastest rate in a decade.

But, pay rises are not expected to match last winter’s double-digit inflation rates.

Research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) found that 55% of recruiters planned to lift base or variable pay this year as they struggle to hire and retain staff in Britain’s tight labour market.

Private sector firms expect, on average, to lift wages by 5% this year, CIPD say, as companies try to attract new staff…. and retain those they already have.

These pay increases could add to inflationary pressures – something that would concern the Bank of England as it tries to control the cost of living. Around 57% of the firms planning pay rises expect to pay for it through raising prices, rather than lowering profits and absorbing the costs.

The opposite was true 12 months ago, CPID say, suggesting that the tight labour market will increasingly feed through into price rises for organisations’ goods and services.

Jon Boys, senior labour market economist at CIPD, says:

“Skills and labour remain scarce in the face of a labour market which continues to be surprisingly buoyant given the economic backdrop of rising inflation and the associated cost-of-living crisis.

“It’s positive to see many employers taking steps to tackle skills shortages by upskilling existing staff and hiring apprentices. However, the UK Government could provide much-needed support by making the Apprenticeship Levy more flexible, to boost employer investment in training and reverse the decline in apprenticeship starts we’ve seen in recent years.

UK pub and bar closures jump amid cost of living crisis

The former Fizz Bar in Ascot.
The former Fizz Bar in Ascot. Photograph: Maureen McLean/REX/Shutterstock

There was a surge in pub and bar companies collapsing last year, new figures show.

Pub and bar bankruptcies across the UK rose from 280 in 2021 to 512 last year, accountancy group UHY Hacker Young said.

That’s the highest total in a decade, as hospitality venues were hit by rising costs due to the energy price crunch, and tepid demand.

Peter Kubik of UHY Hacker Young says the cost of living crisis has made it hard for hospitality firms to keep operating.

“It’s deeply concerning that so many pubs and bars are closing their doors. In addition to the financial consequences for owners and employees, the loss of a pub can be felt quite keenly by the community.

“This is a particularly difficult period for pub and bar owners, who find they need to spend more and more while earning less and less. Following an extended period of lost revenues during the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis has been the final nail in the coffin for many.

“Perhaps the Government should consider what it can do to alleviate pressures, for instance, by extending the energy bill relief scheme for the hospitality sector.”

Introduction: Rising costs and consumer woes hit business optimism

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.

The UK may have (narrowly) avoided recession at the end of last year, but businesses remain pessimistic as they cut back on staff as their output falls.

The latest Business Trends Report from BDO, the accountancy and business advisory group, has found that optimism stagnated at the start of this year.

For the third time in just six months, all four of the Indices tracked by the report - Output, Optimism, Employment and Inflation – fell simultaneously.

The BDO’s poll, which covers over 4,000 companies, found a sharp decline in growth last month. Its BDO’s Output Index which tracks economic growth, fell for the fourth month running. It lost 3.45 points to 89.15, remaining well below the crucial 95-point showing stagnation.

The drop in output was driven by falling consumer demand across the services sector, as shoppers cut back.

BDO say the cost-of-living crisis “weakened consumer spending and demand across the services sector”.

Business optimism remained effectively static, BDO reports. Service sector firms were pessimistic, but optimism among manufacturing businesses rose thanks to waning input price pressures.

The economic headwinds buffeting the UK economy pushed BDO’s employment Index down to its lowest point in over a year, as firms cut back on hiring plans.

BDO’s business trends support index for January 2023

The outlook “remains bleak” for firms, warns Ed Dwan, partner at BDO:

A net decline across the Optimism, Output and Employment Indices, coupled with historically high levels of inflation, suggests the outlook still remains bleak for businesses, with hiring intentions at their lowest levels in over a year and ever-increasing economic headwinds driving threats of a recession.

Dwan urges chancellor Jeremy Hunt to help businesses in the budget next month.

“With a new Department for Business and Trade in place and a Spring Budget on the horizon, there is space in Government to consider how best to offer firms a helping hand.

Businesses need the right support in place to ensure they can weather the challenges ahead and focus on continuing to drive the growth of the UK’s economy.”

Also coming up today

The European Commission is set to publish its regular winter economic forecasts this morning.

European finance ministers will discuss the energy market, and the eurozone economy, when they meet for a Eurogroup meeting this afternoon.

Europe’s stock markets are set for a calm start, with traders edgy after the US military shot down another flying object on Sunday – the fourth object to be shot down over North America by a US missile in a little more than a week.

Geopolitical tensions are once again in focus among investors and traders, says Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Avatrade:

The US military shot down a fourth unidentified object yesterday. The concern among traders is that this unidentified object could also be the Chinese spy balloon. Only a few days back, the US military shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon, and the second object, which was similar to the first one, was shot on Friday that was flying over Alaska. Republican Mike Turner said that Congress hadn’t received any briefing or report on the unidentified objects, but the American people deserve to know more.

The fear here is that things can get out of control and tensions could flare up between the two major superpowers which could adversely influence sentiment among traders. Traders are highly likely to keep close taps on this matter as it continues to develop more.

The agenda

  • 9am GMT: European Commission releases Winter Forecasts

  • 9.30am GMT: UK Office for National Statistics report on home workers

  • Noon GMT: India’s inflation report for January

  • 2pm GMT: Eurogroup meeting in Brussels

Updated

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