London's Economy Today - Issue 151 - March 2015

The overview

• Chancellor delivers final Budget Statement before General Election with upwardly-revised growth forecasts for the UK for 2015 and 2016.
• The Budget outlined the future path of public spending through the course of the next Parliament.
• Prospects for global growth revised down by OBR.

Economic indicators

• Annual output growth in London for Q3 2014 was 3.9%, unchanged from an upwardly-revised estimate in Q2 2014.
• London’s annual employment growth decreased to 2.6% in Q3 2014 from an upwardly-revised 3.8% in Q2 2014.
• New orders in London rising with the PMI recording at 61.2 in February 2015.

The science and technology category in London

• This paper provides a definition of the ‘Science and Technology’ category recently produced by ONS London statisticians.
• In the ten years to 2013, there has been a rise of 129,800 in Science and Technology category employee jobs in the Greater South East – London accounted for the vast majority of this increase.
• The fastest growth in this period was in the Digital technology sub-category (where employee jobs increased by 29 per cent).
• Within London Boroughs, Camden has the highest proportion of Science and Technology category employees in total (at 32.9 per cent).