To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by Make UK Manufacturing Outlook 2023 Quarter 3, published on 14 September; and in particular, the findings that there has been a (1) "slowdown in employment growth", and (2) "a decline in output performance which is also mirrored by the performance of orders which have sunk into negative territory".
Answered on
4 October 2023
The latest ONS statistics present marginal monthly declines in the number of pay-rolled manufacturing employees[1] in July and August 2023 following modest increases throughout the rest of 2023. Overall, the number of pay-rolled employees in the sector has increased by 0.3% in the year to August.
ONS Index of Production data[2] indicates that manufacturing output had a monthly decline of 0.7% in July 2023 following a 3.9% increase in the year to June.
Overall, the latest data shows manufacturing output is estimated to have increased by 3.2% in the year to July.
[1] ONS PAYE Real Time Information https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/datasets/realtimeinformationstatisticsreferencetablenonseasonallyadjusted
[2] ONS Index of Production https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/output/datasets/outputoftheproductionindustries