Coronavirus and the latest indicators for the UK economy and society: 5 November

• According to the latest Business Impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Survey (BICS), across all UK industries, 8% of the workforce were on partial or full furlough leave, and 62% of the workforce were working at their normal place of work. See Section 3.
• According to the latest Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN), the proportion of British adults who travelled to work decreased by three percentage points to 56%, its lowest since mid-August. See Section 4.
• Between 23 and 30 October 2020, total online job adverts remained unchanged from the previous week, at 70% of their 2019 average. See Section 6.
• Prices of items in the food and drink basket decreased by 0.2% in the latest week with several items contributing to this downward change. See Section 7.
• In the week ending 1 November 2020, the number of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) across England and Wales was 40% higher for existing dwellings, and 3% lower for new dwellings when compared with the same week in 2019. See Section 8.
• In the week ending 1 November 2020, Wales showed the largest weekly decrease in overall footfall of 29 percentage points to 26% of the level seen at the same time last year. See Section 9.
• On Monday 2 November 2020, the volume of all motor vehicle traffic was eight percentage points below the levels seen on the first Monday of February 2020. See Section 10.
• In the week ending 1 November 2020, counts of all traffic camera activity in London remained similar to the previous week, while cars, and pedestrian and cyclist traffic decreased across Greater Manchester. See Section 10.

Source: Office for National Statistics – Faster indicators

Final results from Wave 16 of the Business Impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Survey (BICS) are for the period 5 to 18 October, which closed on 1 November 2020. Out of 24,315 UK businesses sampled, 24% responded.

Please note that these data were collected over the period 19 October to 1 November 2020 and refer to the period 5 to 18 October 2020. This should be kept in mind in relation to local and national lockdowns and dependent on the location and date when the business responded, as these could impact on the estimates.

All data in this section are weighted estimates. A detailed description of the weighting methodology and its differences to unweighted estimates is available in Business Impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Survey: preliminary weighted results.

Trading status

Across all UK industries:

• 82% of businesses had been trading for more than the last two weeks
• 2% of businesses had started trading within the last two weeks after a pause in trading
• 4% of businesses had paused trading but intended to restart in the next two weeks
• 8% of businesses had paused trading and did not intend to restart in the next two weeks
• 4% of businesses had permanently ceased trading

The arts, entertainment and recreation industry had the highest percentage of businesses that were temporarily closed or paused trading, at 22%. This was followed by the accommodation and food service activities industry and the administrative and support service activities industry, at 18% and 16% respectively.

Workforce

Please note that these data were collected over the period 19 October to 1 November 2020 and refer to the period 5 to 18 October 2020. This means these data are from before the announcement of the extension of the UK Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) on Saturday, which was due to come to an end on 31 October 2020.

Across all UK industries, of businesses not permanently stopped trading:

• 8% of the workforce were on partial or full furlough leave
• 27% of the workforce were working remotely instead of at their normal place of work
• 62% of the workforce were working at their normal place of work

The arts, entertainment and recreation industry and the accommodation and food service activities industry had the highest proportions of their workforce on partial or full furlough leave under the terms of the UK Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), at 27% and 18% respectively.

Financial performance

Across all UK industries, 45% of businesses currently trading experienced a decrease in turnover compared with what is normally expected for this time of year, 37% experienced no impact on turnover, and 10% experienced an increase.

There were three industries where more than 50% of businesses experienced a decrease in turnover, compared with 45% across all industries. These were the accommodation and food service activities industry, at 72%; the arts, entertainment and recreation industry, at 69%; and the education industry (private sector and higher education businesses only), at 57%.

Conversely, the wholesale and retail trade industry had the highest percentage of businesses experiencing an increase in turnover, at 16%. Additional information on the wholesale and retail trade industry is available in Retail sales, Great Britain: September 2020.

Homeworking

Across all UK industries, of businesses not permanently stopped trading and who reported more staff working from home:

• 14% felt they experienced an increase in productivity compared with the period when home working increased
• 57% felt they experienced no impact on productivity
• 19% felt they experienced a decrease in productivity

The transportation and storage industry had the highest percentage of businesses experiencing a decrease in productivity because of more staff working from home, at 63%, while the information and communication industry had the highest percentage of business experiencing an increase in productivity, at 46%.

This self-reported measure of productivity will differ from our leading measures of productivity published November 4, 2020. The latter are calculated using Gross Value Added and various measures of labour input. They provide the degree of change in productivity from quarter to quarter, as opposed to the estimates in this bulletin, which measure the number of business that have self-reported changes in productivity since homeworking levels increased.

This section includes some headline results from Wave 31 of the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN) covering the period 28 October to 1 November 2020.

Travelling to work

In the week ending 1 November 2020, the proportion of British adults who travelled to work decreased by three percentage points to 56% as shown in Figure 3. The proportion of adults that worked from home and those that neither worked from home nor travelled to work remained similar to the previous week.

Shopping

The proportion of British adults that shopped for food and medicine increased to 73%, an increase of four percentage points from the previous week. It was last higher in mid-September.

Face coverings

The proportion of British adults who have used face coverings fell to 97%, a slight decrease from last week, which could be accounted for by fewer people leaving their homes following the imposition of local restrictions. Further breakdowns such as the situations when a face covering was worn (for example, while shopping) and by the Great Britain countries, will be available in Coronavirus and the social impacts on Great Britain published on 6 November 2020.

Incorporations

Voluntary dissolution applications

For more information on other measures of company closures not presented here, see Weekly indicators of company creations and closures from Companies House methodology: August 2020.

These figures use job adverts provided by Adzuna, an online job search engine, and include experimental estimates of online job adverts by Adzuna category and by UK country and NUTS1 region. The number of job adverts over time is an indicator of the demand for labour. The Adzuna categories used do not correspond to Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) categories, so these values are not directly comparable with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Vacancy Survey.

Figure 6: Between 23 and 30 October 2020, total online job adverts remained unchanged from the previous week, at 70% of their 2019 average.

Total weekly job adverts on Adzuna, UK, 4 January 2019 to 30 October 2020, index 2019 average = 100

Notes:

1. The observations were collected on a roughly weekly basis; however, before June 2020 they were not all observed at the same point in each week, leading to slightly irregular gaps between some observations.
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. 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.

Download the data

In the latest week, total UK online job adverts remained at 70% of their 2019 average, ending a seven-week consecutive weekly increase. Excluding the “unknown” category, online job adverts increased in 13 of the 28 remaining Adzuna categories and decreased in the remaining 15 categories.

In the latest week, total UK online job adverts in the education category decreased the most, by 10 percentage points to 77% of its 2019 average. The transport, logistics and warehouse category increased by 19 percentage points to 175% of its 2019 average, although note that this category has seen high volatility throughout.

Catering and hospitality is following a similar trend to last year in contrast with wholesale and retail, which is currently showing an upward trend for 2020 after beginning a decline at this time last year. This suggests that recovery has stalled for catering and hospitality.

Figure 7: The West Midlands saw the largest weekly increase in online job adverts of two percentage points

Total weekly job adverts on Adzuna, UK, 4 January 2019 to 30 October 2020, index 2019 average = 100, percentage points

Notes:

1. There is a level shift in the Northern Ireland series from 17 October 2019 due to a large source of Northern Ireland job adverts being removed, and another level shift from 7 August 2020 because of a new source being included.

Download the data

In the latest week, the region with the highest volume of job adverts compared with its 2019 average was the East Midlands at 90%, followed by the North East at 88% of its 2019 average. London remains the region with the lowest volume of job adverts for the 10th consecutive week, at 56% of its 2019 average volume; however, like the rest of the UK it has also seen a steady increase in the volume of online job adverts over the previous two months.

The volume of job adverts increased in six English regions (NUTS1) of the UK. The West Midlands saw the largest weekly increase of two percentage points to 83% of its 2019 average, while Wales and the North West each saw the largest weekly decrease of two percentage points to 83% and 77%, respectively.

A timely indication of weekly online price change for a selection of food and drink products from several, large UK retailers has been developed, covering the period 1 June to 1 November 2020. Details of the methodology used for these indicators can be found in Online price changes methodology. This analysis is experimental and should not be compared with our regular consumer price statistics.

We began collecting data from a new retailer on 12 October 2020. These data have been incorporated into the time series resulting in minor revisions to the week commencing 19 October figures.

The time series, weekly growth rates and contributions to the weekly change for all individual food and drink items, along with sample sizes are published in a dataset alongside this release.

Online prices of items in the food and drink basket decreased overall by 0.2% between the week commencing 19 October 2020 and the week commencing 26 October 2020. Figure 8 presents the contributions to this weekly change from each of the main categories of items.

The largest contribution to the downward weekly change was identified in the category of vegetables (negative 0.05 percentage points). A number of categories made a negative contribution of negative 0.03 percentage points. The largest positive contribution to the weekly change was identified in the category of fruit (positive 0.06 percentage points).

Prices for oils and fats decreased by 1.4% between the week commencing 19 October 2020 and the week commencing 26 October 2020, with the largest contributions from olive oil (negative 0.63 percentage points) and butter (negative 0.50 percentage points). Prices for vegetables decreased by 0.4%, with the largest contributions from vegetarian burgers (negative 0.12 percentage points) and crisps (negative 0.11 percentage points).

Conversely, the price of fruit increased by 0.7% in the latest week, primarily driven by contributions from peanuts, strawberries, raspberries and grapes.

Figure 9, with the time series for the all-item index and some of the leading categories of the weekly change, shows that the all-item index started to rise around the end of September 2020, but has stabilised in recent weeks. Overall it remains below the level it was at the beginning of the time series. The prices for oil and fats have consistently decreased through time, whereas the pattern for vegetables and fruit has been similar to the all-item index.

Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) are used as a timely indicator for the number of completed constructions (new EPCs) and number of transactions (existing EPCs). More detailed statistics split by NUTS1 English region are published weekly by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).

This release includes weekly EPCs data for new and existing domestic properties in England and Wales from 24 February 2019 up to the week ending 1 November 2020. This section analyses the percentage change compared with the same week the previous year. For example, the latest week commencing 26 October 2020 was compared with the week commencing 28 October 2019.

The latest week shows that every NUTS 1 region except Wales had higher levels of existing dwellings EPCs compared with the same period last year.

The percentage change of new dwelling EPCs compared with the same week a year ago continues to show a slower recovery relative to existing dwelling EPCs since May 2020. A reduction in construction would contribute to the delay in EPC assessments of new dwellings.

These figures are from Springboard, a provider of data on customer activity. They measure the volume of footfall compared with the same day the previous year at the overall level and across the categories of high streets, retail parks and shopping centres. For example, Tuesday 14 July 2020 was compared with Tuesday 16 July 2019.

Figure 11: Overall UK footfall increased slightly to 68% of the level seen at the same time last year

Volume of footfall, percentage change from the same day the previous year, UK, 1 March to 1 November 2020

Source: Springboard and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Notes:

1. “PM announcement” refers to the advisory announcement on 16 March 2020 to avoid non-essential travel, bars, restaurants and other indoor leisure venues, and to work from home if possible.
2. The spike on Monday 24 August was caused by the comparison with 26 August 2019 last year, which was bank holiday Monday with good weather. The bank holiday this year was a week later, on 31 August.

Download this image Figure 11: Overall UK footfall increased slightly to 68% of the level seen at the same time last year

.png (94.8 kB)

All the UK indices increased with the shopping centre index showing the largest increase by four percentage points from the previous week to 68% of levels seen at the same time last year.

Figure 12: Wales showed the largest weekly decrease in footfall of 29 percentage points to 26% of the level seen at the same time last year

Overall volume of daily footfall, percentage change from the same day the previous year, UK, 1 March to 1 November 2020

Source: Springboard and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Notes:

1. The spike on Monday 24 August was caused by the comparison with 26 August 2019, which was bank holiday Monday with good weather. The bank holiday this year was a week later, on 31 August.
2. Many non-essential shops were allowed to open on 15 June 2020 in England, 12 June 2020 in Northern Ireland and 22 June 2020 in Wales. In Scotland, some non-essential shops were allowed to reopen from 29 June 2020 and more from 13 to 15 July 2020.
3. Pubs were allowed to reopen on 4 July in both England and Northern Ireland, with beer gardens allowed to reopen on 6 July in Scotland and 13 July in Wales. Pubs were also allowed to reopen indoors in Scotland on 15 July.
4. Hospitality venues were required to close by 10pm from 24 September in England and Wales, and 25 September in Scotland. In Northern Ireland they were required to close by 11pm from 30 September.
5. On Monday 12 October new local COVID Alert Levels were announced in England introducing a new three-tier system. Tighter restrictions came into force in Northern Ireland on Friday 16 October. This included the temporary closure of schools, pubs and restaurants. A national lockdown for Wales was introduced on Friday 23 October.

Download this image Figure 12: Wales showed the largest weekly decrease in footfall of 29 percentage points to 26% of the level seen at the same time last year

.png (191.0 kB)

Figure 12 shows the volume of footfall in each English region and UK country compared with the same day the previous year.

Average weekly footfall for the week ending 1 November 2020 increased in six regions: the West Midlands, South West, South East, Scotland, North and Yorkshire, Greater London and the East of England, with the East of England seeing the largest increase of eight percentage points.

Wales saw the largest weekly decrease, by 29 percentage points to 26% of its average footfall seen at the same time last year. This decrease coincided with the national lockdown for Wales, introduced on Friday 23 October. These measures meant that certain businesses and venues, including bars, restaurants and non-essential shops had to close.

At the time of publication, local lockdowns were in force in several of the affected regions. A full list of local lockdowns is available from the Department of Health and Social Care for England, from the Scottish Government for Scotland, the Welsh Government for Wales and from nidirect for Northern Ireland. Note that other factors may influence footfall, including poor weather.

Road traffic in Great Britain

The Department for Transport (DfT) produces daily road traffic estimates using data from around 275 automatic traffic count sites across Great Britain covering all road types, which are published weekly.

The daily DfT estimates are indexed to the first week of February 2020 and the comparison is to the same day of the week. The data provided are useful as an indication of traffic change rather than actual traffic volumes. More information on the methods, quality and economic analysis for these indicators can be found in the methodology article.

Despite this week’s increase, Figure 13 shows that, in general, total motor vehicle traffic has fallen slightly in recent weeks. On Monday 2 November 2020, car traffic had fallen to 13 percentage points below levels seen in the first week of February 2020.

Heavy goods vehicle traffic remains slightly above traffic seen in the first week of February. Light commercial vehicle traffic has also shown an increase compared with the levels seen in the first week of February.

Traffic camera activity

Traffic cameras are a valuable source for understanding the level of activity in towns and cities as well as changing patterns of mobility. The UK has thousands of publicly accessible traffic cameras with providers ranging from national agencies to local authorities. Further information on the methodology used to produce these data is available in our methodology article and Data Science Campus blog.

In the accompanying dataset, the following categories are available as non-seasonally adjusted, seasonally adjusted and trend data: cars, motorbikes (only available for London and the North East), buses, trucks, vans and pedestrians and cyclists.

The categories are available for the following regions, which give a broad coverage across the UK and represent a range of different-sized settlements in urban and rural settings: Durham, London, Greater Manchester, North East, Northern Ireland, Southend and Reading.

Figure 14: In the week ending 1 November 2020, counts of all traffic camera activity in London remained similar to the previous week, while cars and pedestrian, and cyclist traffic decreased across Greater Manchester

Activity in selected areas, daily counts of cars, buses, pedestrians and cyclists, seasonally and non-seasonally adjusted, UK, March to November 2020

Notes:

1. The regions shown here were selected to be representative of the regions available (see list in the previous text).
2. 31 August was a bank holiday.
3. Traffic camera images capture the appearance of buses, but they give no indication of the number of passengers using public transport.
4. Pre-lockdown averages are calculated from when the series started, 11 March to 22 March 2020 for London.
5. Greater Manchester moved into tier 3 "very high" coronavirus alert level on 23 October. London moved into tier 2 on 16 October. Northern Ireland introduced a four week “circuit breaker” with additional restrictions on 16 October.

Download the data

In the latest week ending 1 November 2020, all categories of traffic camera activity in London have remained similar to the previous week, where counts of cars, buses and pedestrians and cyclists in London are around 80% of the average level seen pre-lockdown. Please note that counts of buses give no indication of the number of passengers onboard.

In Manchester, counts of cars decreased to 93% of the average level seen in the previous week, and pedestrians and cyclists traffic decreased to 80%.

In Northern Ireland, counts of cars and pedestrian and cyclists were slightly above the average level seen in the previous week following a sharp decline in the previous week.

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.

Company incorporations

Incorporations are when a company is added to the Companies House register of limited companies. This can also include where an existing business applies to become a limited company, where it was not one before.

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.

Voluntary dissolution applications

A voluntary dissolution application is when a company applies to begin dissolution proceedings. As such, they effectively choose to be removed from the Companies House register. For a company to be eligible to voluntarily dissolve, it should not have completed any trading activity for a period of three months.

Detailed information on the data sources, quality and methodology of the different indicators included in this bulletin is available in the Coronavirus and the latest indicators of the UK economy and society methodology.

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.

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