London's Economy Today - Issue 236 - April 2022

The overview

• The cost of living continues to rise
• Economic growth weakened in February
• Mixed signals on London office space

Economic indicators

• In March, although down on the previous month, the sentiment of London’s PMI new business activity index remained strongly positive with the PMI new business index in London decreasing from 64.3 in February to 62.7 in March. An index reading above 50.0 indicates an increase in new orders on average across firms from the previous month.
• In March, net expectations for house prices for the next three months remained positive if worsening according to surveyors with the net balance of house prices expectations in London at 36, lower than the balance of 50 in February. The net balance index measures the proportion of property surveyors reporting a rise in prices minus those reporting a decline.
• Consumer confidence in London remained negative in April with the consumer confidence index increasing slightly to -12 from -13 in March. The GfK index of consumer confidence reflects people’s views on their financial position and the general economy over the past year and in the next 12 months. A score above zero suggests positive opinions; a score below zero indicates negative sentiment.

London's Economy Today supplement: Summary of Local Skills Report, Spring 2022

The GLA published an update of its Local Skills Report (LSR) this February together with extensive Data Annexes, providing insight into the key aspects of the local labour market and skills landscape at a London and sub-regional level.

This supplement summarises some of the key data and analysis which were highlighted in the report and annexes

• London’s labour market has been growing long-term. Over the past decade the employment rate has risen from below 68% to around 76%, while the unemployment rate has dropped from 10% to below 5% during this time
• Londoners are relatively highly educated and productive. Around 59% of working age Londoners held a high-level qualification (NVQ4+) in 2020, a substantial increase from 31% in 2004.
• Demographic and geographic inequalities nevertheless persist. The employment rate for Londoners with degree-level qualifications was twice that for those without any formal qualifications, a bigger difference than in other parts of the country
• London’s labour market was significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact from the pandemic was often more severe in London than other UK regions. The total number of workforce jobs in London fell by 1.7% between December 2019 and 2021 compared to a decrease of 1.4% across the UK on average.
• Out of the 20 local authorities with the highest change in the claimant count rate in the UK, 16 were in London.

London’s Economy Today data on the Datastore

• The main economic indicators for London are available to download from the Datastore.