The Office for National Statistics has admitted that it has discovered an error in the way it produces seasonally adjusted retail sales data.
The blunder relates to the treatment of “calendar effects”, such as the timing of Easter (which moves between March and April), and to the way that its default data collection periods are aligned to calendar months.
The ONS uses default data collection periods on a four-week, four-week, five-week cycle, which then needs to be aligned to calendar months.
This error forced the ONS to delay the release of the retail sales data – they were initially due two weeks ago.
The ONS, which insists seasonal adjustment is important, reveals that the treatment of these holiday effects and “phase shift” effects were not properly accounted for between January and May this year.
The corrections mean that retail sales were actually lower than previously recorded in January, February, April and June.
These errors are another embarrassment for the ONS; back in June, a report exposed “deep-seated” problems at the statistics body, which has been struggling to produce data on the state of the labour market, too.
Today’s data also shows that the volume of goods bought by shoppers fell by 0.6% in the three months to July 2025 when compared with the three months to April 2025.
However, in July alone, retail sales volumes are estimated to have risen by 0.6%, after an increase of 0.3% in June 2025.
UK house prices have hit a new record high, the lender Halifax has reported this morning.
Halifax’s house price index shows that prices rose by 0.3% in August, the third monthly rise in a row.
That lifted the average property price to £299,331, a record high.
All eyes will be on the US employment market later today, for signs that the jobs market is cooling.
The latest non-farm payroll data is expected to show a slowdown in hiring – economists predict a rise of 75,000 in August. That would be slightly higher than the disappointing 73,000 increase reported in July – which spurred Donald Trump to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Today’s key events
• 9am BST: UN FAO food price index
• 1.30pm BST: US non-farm payroll jobs report
We’ll be tracking all the main events throughout the day on our business live blog …
