Towards the end of July, the Department for Business and Trade published its annual release of Inward Investment statistics[i] for the UK. Data for the financial year ending March 2024, revealed a 6% drop in the total number of UK Inward Investment projects won, compared to the previous year. The total number of jobs generated by projects landing in the UK in this period, fell by 10% compared with 22/23.
Hertfordshire, bucked the national trend, increasing the number of projects won from 15 in 2022/23 to 20 in 23/24; A rise of 33%. This will create 483 new jobs; a near doubling (+90%) of the number of new jobs created, compared to the previous year.
This follows from an expansion of the Hertfordshire economy in 2022. The publication of local economic data[ii] in August, confirmed that the County’s economy had by then recovered over £3bn of economic output lost because of the Covid pandemic. Gross Value Added, the principal metric for monitoring economic performance tends to lag changes in the economy and is invariably out of date at the time of publication.
However, we know from government’s publication of Real Time Information on Pay and Earnings [iii]that wages increased by 5.3% in Hertfordshire in the 12 months from August 23 to August 24 as Gross Median earnings grew to £2,714 per month in August.
This aligns with official statistics confirming that the employment rate[iv] in Hertfordshire at 79.4% had improved early in 2024 as the local economy bounced back. This was better than the GB rate of 75.5%.
Given Hertfordshire’s strong performance data on incomes and jobs, coupled with historic data confirming economic recovery from recession, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the worst of the post pandemic downturn appears to be now behind us.
[i] DBT Inward Investment results tables 2023-2024 - Department for Business and Trade (DBT) statistics showing results for inward investment projects which landed in the UK in the 2023 to 2024 financial year. Published 27 June 2024
[ii] Regional gross domestic product (GDP) local authority reference tables 1998 to 2022 – Annual estimates by the Office for National Statistics of balanced UK regional gross domestic product (GDP). Published 24 April 2024
[iii]Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI), UK, NUTS 1, 2 and 3 areas and local authorities - Earnings and employment statistics from Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI), monthly, non-seasonally adjusted.
[iv] Employment Rate Apr 23 to Mar 24- The number of people in employment expressed as a percentage of all people aged 16-64. Published by ONS on Nomisweb 24/09/24