Analysis May:
The economic situation at the end of May was worse than at the end of April. This is mainly due to declining confidence among consumers and manufacturers, slumping household consumption and the poor situation on the labour market. Just as in April, the heart of the scatter in the Business Cycle Tracer is located in the recession stage. Thirteen of the fifteen indicators are currently below the level of their long-term average.
In the course of May, new data have become available for all indicators except for the number of bankruptcies. As a result, the distribution of the indicators across the quadrants changed considerably. Household consumption, temp jobs and the capital market interest rate deteriorated in the Tracer and moved from the yellow to the red quadrant. Manufacturing output, on the other hand, showed improvement and moved from the red to the green quadrant.
Besides household consumption, temp jobs and the interest rate, May’s Tracer showed four other obvious deteriorations. In the red quadrant, producer confidence, unemployment and the number of man-years moved downwards and to the left. In the yellow quadrant, consumer confidence moved a bit to the left and downwards.
At the end of May, the heart of the scatter in the Tracer is located in the red quadrant (indicating recession). Twelve of the fifteen indicators are in the red quadrant, one in the yellow quadrant and two in the green quadrant. The growth rate of indicators in the red quadrant is below their long-term average and slowing down. The growth rate of indicators in the yellow quadrant is also below their long-term average, but accelerating. The growth rate of the indicators in the green quadrant is above their long-term average and accelerating. The growth rate of indicators located in the orange quadrant is also above their long-term average, but slowing down.
The Business Cycle Dashboard shows the cyle of the seperate indicators.
The BCT indicator shows the cycle of the heart of the scatter in the Tracer.
Do you want to know how Statistics Netherlands' Business Cycle Tracer works? It is on YouTube: How does the Business Cycle Tracer work?
Do you want to see how the economic downturn developed? It is on YouTube: Looking at the economic downturn
New look for the business Cycle Tracer
Brief explanation Business Cycle Tracer
Definitions of indicators in the Business Cycle Tracer (BCT)
Methodological aspects, concept, cycle computation and indicator selection
Source: CBS