UK retail sales volumes have in recent weeks shown their sharpest year-on-year drop since the depths of the 2008/09 recession, a survey has revealed, signalling intense pressure on household finances.
The Confederation of British Industry published its grim retail report as an annual survey from the Office for National Statistics confirmed UK pay fell in real terms year-on-year for the first time since 2014.
The ONS survey showed full-time workers’ weekly earnings decreased by 0.4 per cent over the year to April, when adjusted for inflation. Median nominal gross weekly earnings for full-time employees in the UK in April were £550, up 2.2 per cent from £539 a year earlier. However, the annual UK consumer prices index inflation rate, which has been fuelled by sterling’s post-Brexit vote weakness, had by April climbed to 2.6 per cent.
Of retailers surveyed by the CBI between September 27 and October 13, 50 per cent said sales volumes were lower than a year earlier and 15 per cent declared they were higher, with 35 per cent reporting an unchanged position.
The rounded net 36 per cent reporting a year-on-year fall in sales volumes signalled the steepest such drop since March 2009.
In the previous monthly survey, a balance of 42 per cent of retailers had reported a year-on-year rise in sales volumes.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here