Firms ‘treading water’ as rising prices slows business

The CBI said sector activity remained ‘sluggish’ in the three months to July
Market stalls in St George’s Street in Canterbury, Kent (Nick Ansell/PA)
PA Archive
Alan Jones30 July 2022

Firms are “treading water” as they continue to be hit by rising prices, new research suggests.

The CBI said sector activity remained “sluggish“ in the three months to July, with no improvement expected in the quarter ahead.

Activity across business and professional services grew at a quicker pace than the previous month, while consumer services activity continued to fall, said the CBI.

Firms do not expect to see any growth at all in private sector activity over the coming quarter, according to the survey of 538 firms.

Shoppers in Sheffield, South Yorkhire (Mike Egerton/PA)
PA Archive

Alpesh Paleja, CBI lead economist, said: “As firms and consumers continue to be buffeted by rising prices, private sector activity has slowed to a near standstill.

“With the announcement of a further rise in the energy price cap now just weeks away, consumer-facing firms will also be bracing for an even tighter squeeze on household incomes in the months ahead.

“Consumer spending isn’t going to restart the engine on growth this time.

“Boosting business investment will help to fill the void left by households, but incentives need to be bold, or they won’t scratch the surface.

“As a summer of political drama continues, it’s been encouraging to see both prime ministerial candidates, as well as the main opposition party, put the economy front and centre of political debate.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in