Northern Ireland economy stalled in third quarter of 2022, says ONS

Households and businesses were hit by rising costs last year, which curbed their spending power

There was no growth in Northern Ireland's economy in the third quarter of 2022, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests.

The regional GDP figures also suggest there was no growth in England while output fell in Scotland and Wales by 0.3% and 2% respectively.

Of the nine English regions only London, the south west and north east showed quarter on quarter growth.

The ONS figures are experimental estimates based on VAT data.

The ONS said the experimental nature of the figures means they can be volatile and need to be interpreted with caution.

A separate set of figures produced by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) suggests the Northern Ireland economy had contracted by 0.3% in the third quarter.

On Nisra's measurement that meant Northern Ireland entered a technical recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of falling output.

On the ONS measure there was no recession because the economy neither grew nor shrank.

The figures help illustrate the difficulty of precisely defining when an economy is in recession.

However they do tell broadly the same story - in the first three quarters of 2022 economic growth in Northern Ireland was weak or non-existent as households and businesses were hit by rising costs.

Nisra's most up to date figures suggest there was a recovery in output in the last quarter of 2022.