NI ESR Monthly GDP Tracker - Recessionary Pressures Receding in the Rearview Mirror as UK Economy

Figure 5 – UK GDP growth (3 months on previous 3 months, per cent) Figure 6 shows a heat map of the data surprises across sectors in the monthly data, relative to last month’s GDP Tracker, highlighting the sectors where the surprises are large relative to the volatility of the output data. [...] Figure 7 - Contributions to quarterly GDP growth (percentage points) Services (80 per cent of GDP) The survey balances point to optimistic prospects for the services sector in the first quarter of 2024, as shown by the survey indicators in figures 4 and 8. [...] While the construction sector is negatively affected by the wet weather in February, we forecast growth in this sector to flatline in the first quarter of 2024. [...] We forecast this sector to contract by 2.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2024 and by 0.3 per cent in the second quarter. [...] Our first estimate of growth for any particular quarter starts in the first month of that quarter and is then updated each month until the first official release in the second month of the following quarter.