LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s statistics office, which is under fire for its unreliable labour market data, said it had paused publication of its factory gate inflation figures and similar data for the services sector after finding a methodology problem.
“This problem affects the years from 2008 onwards. However, the main impact on annual producer price inflation rates is seen in 2022 and 2023,” the Office for National Statistics said in a statement on Friday.
“As a consequence, we are pausing the publication of PPI and SPPI data, which was next due on March 26, while we rectify this issue,” it said.
The ONS said it planned to recommence publication of the data in the summer.
In 2023, the statistics office detected problems with the response rates to its Labour Force Survey which is used to calculate Britain’s unemployment rate and other key measures of the jobs market. An improved version of that survey might be released in 2026 or possibly only in 2027.
The ONS said the problems with its producer price data might lead to revisions to estimates of output levels in services, production and construction in 2022 and 2023 but were unlikely to lead to notable changes to the overall economic picture.
Some deflators used for trade in goods and trade in services were also affected, it said.
(Writing by William Schomberg; editing by Sarah Young and Suban Abdulla)
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