Business Insights And Impact On The UK Economy - 8 June 2023

9th June 2023

The impact of challenges facing the economy and other events on UK businesses. Based on responses from the voluntary fortnightly business survey (BICS) to deliver real-time information to help assess issues affecting UK businesses and economy, including financial performance, workforce, trade, and business resilience.

Latest results suggest business conditions continue to remain challenging, but estimates show small signs of positive improvement for some measures; examples include a stable proportion of businesses reporting they were able to get materials, goods and services from within the UK, and a higher proportion of businesses reporting having fewer concerns for their business.
Nearly two-thirds (65%) of trading businesses reported that they were able to get the materials, goods or services they needed from within the UK in April 2023, unchanged from March 2023.

When asked in May 2023, 68% of businesses reported they had some form of concern for June 2023, down from the 71% reporting concerns the previous month for May 2023, and the lowest percentage reported this year; those that reported energy prices as their main concern fell from 18% for May 2023 to 15% for June 2023, and concerns about inflation of goods and services prices fell from 16% to 15%.

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of businesses were not experiencing worker shortages in late May 2023; 13% reported they did have shortages and the remainder selected "not sure" or "not applicable", stable with late April 2023.

Nearly a quarter (23%) of businesses reported that their employees' hourly wages had increased in April 2023 compared with March 2023 (14%); this was 48% in April 2023 for businesses with 10 or more employees compared with March 2023 (23%).

In April 2023, fewer than 1 in 10 (9%) businesses were directly or indirectly affected by industrial action; of these, 24% reported they were unable to fully operate as a consequence and 32% selected "other" as a reason, for example, reduced demand for goods and/or services and a fall in the number of customers.

Read the full report HERE