Agents' Summary of Business Conditions - September 2014

• Retail sales values growth had eased, but this was due to lower food price inflation; consumer services values had continued to grow steadily.
• Housing market activity had stabilised at lower transaction levels, after a weakening in earlier months, which contacts largely attributed to the implementation of the Mortgage Market Review. House price inflation had eased.
• Investment intentions for the next twelve months had remained steady, and were consistent with more rapid growth in services investment than manufacturing.
• Business services turnover growth had remained strong.
• Manufacturing output growth for the domestic market had eased. Fragile European demand, sterling’s appreciation and the crisis in Ukraine had affected export volumes.
• Construction output growth had eased slightly but remained robust.
• Corporate credit conditions had improved further.
• Employment intentions had weakened in manufacturing and consumer services but had increased further for business services.
• Recruitment difficulties had edged up, and were affecting a widening range of sectors.
• Capacity utilisation had eased over the month, as investment and recruitment had boosted capacity at some firms ahead of expected demand growth.
• Growth in total labour costs per employee had remained steady.
• Materials costs and imported finished goods prices had continued to fall on a year earlier.
• Output price inflation had edged lower, but profitability had continued to rise modestly.
• Consumer price inflation had remained modest.

Agents' Summary of Business Conditions - September 2014

• Agents' scores (xlsx)
• Definitions for the Agents’ scores
• Response to consultation on changes to Agents' scores