Greater Manchester's economy strong despite Q3 slowdown, says report

The economy of Greater Manchester remained strong but showed a slight slowdown in the third quarter of 2015, according to the latest Quarterly Economic Survey (QES) from the county’s Chamber of Commerce.

Growth was hindered by a weakening in order books for manufacturing businesses, according to the report, which also found a moderated demand in the services sector. Both sectors remained strong overall, it was suggested, despite falling from recent record highs.

The Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce’s head of policy and research, Christian Spence, said: “Despite the slight slowdown in the Manchester Index to 31.3 the index continues to indicate that the Greater Manchester economy is expanding at levels above those seen before the recession of 2008.

“British Chambers of Commerce recently revised up its economic forecast for 2015 to 2.6% and to 2.7% for the coming two years.”

He added: “We believe that the outturn for 2015 will be marginally higher, driven primarily by strong construction activity in our region which we maintain is being under-reported in the official data from the Office for National Statistics.”

The report also highlighted robust recruitment levels, with the authors claiming that while employment growth eased slightly, the data is ‘favourable’ in comparison to pre-recession levels. Of the companies surveyed, around 60% are currently looking to recruit, while the figure rose to 80% in the construction sector. However, around one in four reported difficulty in finding suitable candidates.

Training, meanwhile, was shown to be at a similar level to 2005.

Elsewhere, the county’s overall inflation environment was found to be weak, as less than 20% of businesses said they plan to increase their prices in Q4. Despite this, confidence is reported to be up, with profit and turnover expectations for the coming year end close to record highs. Only manufacturing showed a slight downward movement in turnover expectations.