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Queen’s Jubilee hits manufacturing hard

Additional bank holidays during June have caused a sharp decrease in manufacturing output, according to figures from Office for National Statistics.

Statistics show that output fell by 2.9% between May and June 2012, as the ONS put the weakness down to the celebration for the Queen’s 60th year on the throne, as well as the moving of the late May bank holiday into June.

This slump came after a slight rise of 1.2% in manufacturing output in May, while figures show a 4.3% decline in both production and manufacturing in June year-on-year.

Nevertheless these figures are an improvement on economists’ expectations for June, as a pessimistic fall of 4.1% had been predicted.

A focus on industrial output also shows that the mining & quarrying sectors’ output fell by 4.4 % in the second quarter, although output in the energy sector rose by 5.6 % in the second quarter of 2012 .

Despite these figures being a softer blow than city analysts predicted, the UK industry still faces obstacles as consumers remain under-confident when it comes to spending, and the threat of a eurozone crisis which could impact on these figures in the latter half of 2012.

Image by Rian Saunders

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .