This trend will undoubtedly follow again in October and November - Comment on the ONS GDP figures for September from Phoebus Software

12 November 2020

Richard Pike, sales and marketing director at Phoebus Software, responding to today’s figures from the ONS say “Today’s GDP figures are unsurprising, and although GDP shows good growth in Q3, it is still at a lower level than pre-COVID. Schemes such as “eat out” clearly helped in the first two months, but after that expired we see that the economy in September really slowed down. This trend will undoubtedly follow again in October and November, and it remains to be seen if there will be a Christmas boost to consumer spending this year as is usually the case.

“In the longer-term, you can’t take these figures in isolation. Last weeks’ announcement of large increases in benefit claimants and redundancies, coupled with a predicted 2% dip in Q4 GPD (by the Bank of England), really doesn’t bode well for growth in Q1 2021, with or without a vaccination programme commencing. Even with a vaccination programme, there are many that think it is inevitable that further waves of COVID will hit the country as restrictions get relaxed. So what we thought would be short-term forbearance policies offered by lenders, could almost become the norm for the foreseeable future.

“With reports coming out that the initial housing market Stamp Duty spike is now beginning to slow down, Q2 2021 is really looking like a pivotal quarter for economic performance in many areas, which will be indicative of what we can hope for the remainder of next year.”