If you exclude North Sea oil and the City, Britain IS recovering
By Tim Montgomerie
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Here are a few quotes from David Smith's article for the Sunday Times, republished on his blog;
- "The service sector, which accounts for 77% of GDP, had a milder recession than the rest of the economy and has has a better recovery, growing by 1.1% in 2010, 1.2% in 2011 and 1.2% again in 2012."
- "The motor trade is up 11.4% since 2009, wholesaling 5%, publishing, audiovisual and broadcasting up 15.8%. What the Office for National Statistics calls accommodation is up 6%, telecommunications 6.3%, computer programming and consultancy 14.6%, arts, entertainment and recreation 6.7%, legal, accountancy and architecture 9.2%, other professional and scientific services 17.4%, and healthcare (including the ringfenced National Health Service) 10.4%."
- "The number of people in work is 3.3% higher than its 2009 recession low point and 0.7% above pre-crisis levels. Service sector employment is 722,000 up on the 2009 low and 490,000 higher than at the start of 2008, when recession struck. Those increases are 2.8% and 1.9% respectively."
For David Smith the reason why the overall economic numbers are so flat is that two historically important sectors - the North Sea oil industry and the financial services sector - have endured such torrid times. But the overall picture is of a wider economy that is recovering and of a British economy that is - to use the jargon - rebalancing.
"My suspicion is that the Office for National Statistics is not picking up in full the explosion of business start-ups. The number of UK private-sector businesses has increased in each of the past 12 years and stands at 4.8 million, a record high. One-man bands are often slow with paperwork and hard to track. Naysayers sneer that recession has turned us into a nation of odd-jobbers and micro-businesses. Let’s hope so. That’s how Microsoft, Google and Facebook began."
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