Index of production

Important notes and usage information

There has been much speculation about how the low oil prices will affect the oil and gas industry and this article outlines the impact.

The Assessment of Short-Term Economic Output Indicators: Preliminary Estimate of GDP, Indices of Production and Services, and Retail Sales has been published. Please see assessment report number 278 for further details.

On 7 January 2015, the following papers were published:

Impact of quarterly employment question on monthly survey response (PDF 163.7KB)

Monthly Business Survey variance of change (PDF 110KB)

We have implemented an updated version of the seasonal adjustment software called X-13-ARIMA-SEATS. The new version is in line with international best practice and is a change from the previously used version X-12-ARIMA. In practice, this will result in improved quality of outputs for seasonally adjusted estimates.

####Upcoming changes

The Index of Production release for April 2015, to be published on 10 June 2015, will have a revisions period back to January 2014.

####Interpreting the data

The non-seasonally adjusted series contain elements relating to the impact of the standard reporting period, moving holidays and trading day activity. When making comparisons it is recommended that users focus on seasonally adjusted estimates as these have the seasonal effects and systematic calendar related components removed. Figures for the most recent months are provisional and subject to revision in light of:

• late responses to surveys and administrative sources

• revisions to seasonal adjustment factors which are re-estimated every month and reviewed annually (changes from the latest review are included in this release).