Coronavirus and the latest indicators for the UK economy and society: 25 June 2020

• The latest Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN) (collected 18 to 21 June 2020) showed 44% of working adults in Great Britain had travelled to work in the past seven days, an increase from 41% the previous week, following a shift from remote working to travelling to work. 

• This supplements the latest Business Impact of Coronavirus Survey (BICS), which showed 2% of the UK workforce in businesses continuing to trade had returned from remote working in the past two weeks; 7% of the total workforce had also returned from furlough. 

• 64% of businesses trading between 1 and 14 June 2020 reported that their turnover was below normal expectations for this time of year.

• 43% of businesses continuing to trade said that capital expenditure had stopped or was lower than normal because of the coronavirus (COVID-19).

• Between 12 June and 19 June 2020, the volume of job adverts in catering and hospitality increased from around 20% to 27% of its 2019 average; education also saw a large increase.

• Overall, prices of items in the high-demand product (HDP) basket have decreased by 0.4% between weeks 13 and 14, the largest weekly fall seen since the series began on 16 March 2020.

• Total daily ship visits increased in the latest period, from 335 average daily visits between 8 and 14 June 2020 to 369 visits between 15 and 21 June.

• From 1 March to 16 June 2020, the Department for Work and Pensions received 3.3 million individual declarations and 1 million new claim advances to Universal Credit.

This section includes initial results from Wave 7 of the Business Impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Survey (BICS) for the period 1 June to 14 June 2020, which closes on 28 June 2020. Out of 24,473 businesses sampled, 21% had responded as of 23 June 2020. Please see the section Measuring the data for information on recent sample changes.

Figure 1: 41% of responding businesses are providing wage top-ups to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, with 44% of responding businesses having less than six months of cash reserves

Headline indicators from the Business Impact of Coronavirus Survey, 1 June to 14 June, UK

Notes:

1. Businesses were asked for their experiences for the reference period 1 June to 14 June 2020, but for questions regarding expectations in the next two weeks businesses may respond from the point of completion of the questionnaire (15 June to 23 June).
2. All percentages are a proportion of the number of businesses who responded apart from the percentages on furlough leave which are a proportion of the workforce apportioned by workforce size.

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Between 1 and 14 June 2020, 86% of businesses were trading (Figure 1), with 79% of businesses trading for more than the last two weeks prior to completing the questionnaire. The remaining 6% said they had restarted trading in the last two weeks after a pause in trading (figures may not sum to totals because of rounding).

Of the businesses trading, 7% of their total workforce had returned from furlough in the two weeks prior to completing the questionnaire, while 2% returned from remote working to their normal workplace. Table 1 also shows the financial performance of businesses continuing to trade.

Of all businesses, 14% had temporarily closed or paused trading between 1 and 14 June. Of these, 3% of businesses intend to restart trading in the next two weeks, but 11% do not intend to restart in that period.

Of the 3% of businesses intending to restart trading in the next two weeks, 18% of the total workforce are expected to return from furlough while 2% are expected to return from remote working.

The impact of the coronavirus on capital expenditure was asked about for the first time in Wave 7; see Figure 2.

This section includes some headline results from Wave 14 of the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN) covering the period 18 to 21 June 2020. The full results will be published in Coronavirus and the social impacts on Great Britain on 26 June 2020.

Figure 3 shows that whilst the proportion of working adults in Great Britain actively working has stayed roughly the same in the latest waves (79% between 11 and 14 June, compared with 77% between 18 and 21 June), there has been a shift from working from home to travelling to work. This supplements findings from the latest Business Impacts of Coronavirus Survey (BICS), where UK businesses continuing to trade reported 2% of the total workforce had returned from remote working to their place of work in the past two weeks.

These figures cover the UK job market for 4 January 2019 to 19 June 2020, using job adverts provided by Adzuna, an online job search engine. These estimates are experimental and will continue to be developed. The number of job adverts over time is an indicator of the demand for labour.

Figure 4: The volume of job adverts in catering and hospitality increased from around 20% to 27% of its 2019 average between 12 and 19 June 2020; education also saw a large increase

Total weekly job adverts on Adzuna, UK, 4 January 2019 to 19 June 2020, index 2019 average = 100

Notes:

1. The observations were collected on a roughly weekly basis; however, they were not all observed at the same point in each week, leading to slightly irregular gaps between each observation.
2. These series have a small number of missing weeks, mostly in late 2019, and the latest is in January 2020. These values have been imputed using linear interpolation. The data points that have been imputed are clearly marked in the accompanying dataset.
3. The figure for total adverts in Education on 21 March 2019 was anomalous and has been replaced with an imputed value.
4. Further category breakdowns are included in the Online job advert estimates dataset, and more details on the methodology can be found in Using Adzuna data to derive an indicator of weekly vacancies.

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Between 12 and 19 June 2020, the volume of online job adverts in catering and hospitality saw a large increase from around 20% to 27% of its 2019 average, reflecting a growing expectation for pubs and bars to reopen. Education also saw a large increase, from 79% to 86% of its 2019 average.

However, after last week's strong growth, the volume of online job adverts in wholesale and retail has declined moderately from 35% to 33% of its 2019 average.

Across the same period, total online job adverts increased from 50% to 53% of their 2019 average, the fifth consecutive week of growth. Although this may offer some early evidence of some recovery in demand for labour overall, this may be distributed unequally across the categories of adverts. Half of the Adzuna categories saw an increase in adverts while the other half saw a decrease over the last week, notably including wholesale and retail.

The categories presented here were selected because of user interest, and because they more closely track trends in the Office for National Statistics (ONS) vacancies data. Note that the Adzuna categories used do not correspond to Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) categories, so these values are not directly comparable with the ONS Vacancy Survey. Furthermore, historically the health and social care category has shown a strong correlation with the ONS Vacancy Survey, but from April 2020 it has increasingly diverged from the vacancies data.

The Institute for Employment Studies are also using Adzuna data to produce weekly vacancy indicators, and more granular breakdowns of these data can be found in their release.

A timely indication of weekly price change for high-demand products (HDPs) has been developed, covering the period 16 March to 21 June 2020. A timeline of developments for these indicators can be found in Online price changes of high-demand products methodology. This analysis is experimental and should not be compared with our regular consumer price statistics.

Figure 5 shows that the all HDP items index has decreased 0.4% between week 13 and week 14, driven by relatively small price falls for several items. This is the largest weekly fall in prices seen since the series began in mid-March.

The largest item-level price changes between week 13 and week 14 were vitamin C (where prices increased by 3.3%, bringing them to 5.0% below their week 1 level) and long-life milk (where prices decreased by 2.7%, bringing them to 2.3% below their week 1 level).

Vitamin C prices had fallen in previous weeks as products were on sale, and these sales have now ended causing prices to bounce back. The fall in long-life milk prices were caused by a line of products in one retailer going on offer, resulting in the largest movement seen in long-life milk since the series began in mid-March 2020.

Figure 6 shows that for the first time since the series began, the all HDP items index has fallen marginally below its level in week 1, decreasing by 0.4% in the latest week. The all food, and all household and hygiene indices have also seen decreases in prices this week, putting them slightly above their levels in week 1.

These shipping indicators are based on counts of all vessels, and cargo and tanker vessels. As discussed in Faster indicators of UK economic activity: shipping, we expect the shipping indicators to be related to the import and export of goods.

Total daily ship visits increased to an average of 369 (seasonally adjusted) over the most recent week, 15 June to 21 June 2020 (Figure 7). Cargo and tanker visits rose to an average of 103 visits in the same period.

Figure 8: The DWP has received 3.3 million individual declarations and 1 million new claim advances to Universal Credit from 1 March 2020 to 16 June 2020

Number of new Individual and Household Credit declarations, Great Britain, 1 March 2020 to 16 June 2020

Notes:

1. These declaration figures have not been derived to the same methodology as official statistics, and therefore the Management Information and official statistics will not be directly comparable. Figures relate to Great Britain only, and Northern Ireland is not included.

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The first chart in Figure 8 shows the number of new declarations, which is when an individual or household provides information on their personal circumstances to begin a Universal Credit (UC) claim. Note that not all declarations will go on to receive a payment.

Since the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, there have been unprecedented levels of demand for Universal Credit. Since 1 March 2020, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has received 3.3 million individual declarations and 2.6 million household declarations. While there are still higher declaration volumes compared with normal business, these volumes are declining gradually from the peak on 27 March 2020.

The second chart in Figure 8 shows the number of new claim advances, which provide support to new claimants in financial need until they receive their first regular payment of Universal Credit.

The volume of new advance payments has seen a large increase, reaching a peak on 6 April 2020 at 35,280, which was 10 days after the peak of new declarations. Since 1 March 2020, the DWP has paid 1,067,540 new claim and benefit transfer advances. Following the peak, new claim advances have steadily fallen, which coincides with the trend in Universal Credit declarations.

Faster indicator

A faster indicator provides insights into economic activity using close-to-real-time big data, administrative data sources, rapid response surveys or experimental statistics, which represent useful economic and social concepts.

High-demand product (HDP) basket

The HDP basket contains everyday essential items that were identified at the beginning of the crisis to have high consumer demand, including items from food, health and hygiene categories. The selection of these items was based on anecdotal evidence on patterns of consumer spend. The basket does not cover all items within these categories.

The sample design for Wave 7 of BICS has been reviewed and refreshed to improve the coverage for smaller-sized businesses. More information can be found in the Coronavirus and the latest indicators of the UK economy and society methodology article.

Detailed information on the data sources, quality and methodology of the different indicators included in this bulletin is available in the methodology article.

We will summarise any crucial updates to the quality or methodology in this section in the future.

Detailed information on the strengths and limitations of the different indicators included in this bulletin is available in the Coronavirus and the latest indicators of the UK economy and society methodology article.

We will summarise any crucial updates or caveats in this section in the future.