Trade Deficit In Goods Now £27.4bn

The deficit on UK trade in goods widened by £0.9bn to £27.4bn in Q2 2014 compared with a deficit of £26.5bn in Q1 2014. There was a change in value of -£0.5bn or 0.7% in total exports to £71.3bn and a change of -£0.4bn or 0.4% to £98.7bn in total imports in Q2 2014.

At the level of the change in value by industry, exports in agriculture, forestry and fishing products fell by £45m and imports fell by £9m. Information and communications services exports increased by £25m and imports also increased by £2m. In professional, scientific and technical services exports fell by £3m and imports fell by £1m. Arts, entertainment and recreation imports increased by £91m and imports fell by £198m.

North East-South East Divide In Labour Market

The employment rate was highest in the South East with 75.1% and lowest in the North East with 66.1%. The unemployment rate was highest in the North East with 10.4% and lowest in the South East with 5.8%. Inactivity was highest in the North East with a rate of 26% and lowest in the South East with 19.7%. The claimant count was highest in the North East at 7.1% and lowest in the South East at 2.7%.

Nationally, the unemployment rate was 7.8% down 0.2% from December 2012 to February 2013 and 0.3% on a year earlier. There were 2.51m people unemployed, a fall of 57,000 from December 2012 to February 2013 and 72,000 on the year. Inactivity was up 0.2% to 22.5%. The number of young unemployed fell 20,000 to 959,000.

Total pay rose by 1.7% to £476/week and regular pay by 1% to £446/week compared with March to May 2012. Average weekly hours worked for March to May totalled 32 up 0.1 from December to February and a year earlier. The claimant count was 1.48m, down 117,700 on the year. The rate was 4.4% down 0.1% from May 2013.

There were 32.3m workforce jobs in March 2013, up 211,000 from December and 161,000 on the year. The biggest increase sectorally was in professional, scientific and technical jobs with an increase of 118,000 to 2.56m. There were 529,000 vacancies, up 24,000 from January to March and 56,000 on the year.