Capital Economy, Business and Finance
After a three-month suspension, the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) published its monthly employment data last week. The only caveat – it’s most likely wrong. The response rate to its labour force survey has been so low that its figures have become unreliable. The timing couldn’t be worse. Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, said this week that interest rate cuts in 2024 will depend on labour market data – before recognising he won’t have reliable figures until at least September, when the results of a “transformed” (says the ONS) survey get released. Bailey’s job was already tricky: he is facing the risk of either keeping interest rates too high and prolonging the UK’s recession, or lowering them too quickly and reigniting inflation. This data blind spot will only make things trickier.