All analysis from category Macro comment
Macro comment
State budget for November: relatively decent result
In January-November, the central government ran a deficit of CZK 337 billion, while in November alone the deficit was CZK 50 billion. The twelve-month balance currently stands at CZK 355 billion.
Macro comment
PMI in November: no improvement in conditions in sight
Business conditions in November are significantly below the neutral 50-point threshold indicating a decline in corporate economic activity. On a month-on-month basis, they were virtually stagnant, with the seasonally adjusted manufacturing purchasing managers' index falling from 41.7 points to 41.6 points compared with October. This is the lowest reading since the start of the pandemic in 2020. No major improvement is expected in the outlook. What are the reasons for the decline?
Macro comment
Consumer prices in October: Administrative reduction in inflation
Consumer prices had been rising very rapidly for a number of months and finally fell in October. This was helped by the introduction of an electricity savings tariff. The consumer price index fell by 1.4 per cent month-on-month. Year-on-year inflation slowed from 18.0 to 15.1 per cent.
Macro comment
Retail sales in September: downward sales trend continues.
Retail sales fall year-on-year for the fifth month in a row. While the momentum of the sales decline slowed slightly in September, household behavior will still be in savings-seeking mode and reducing their consumption due to rising costs and declining real incomes. Retail sales excluding motor vehicles rose by 0.8 per cent month-on-month on a calendar and seasonally adjusted basis. On a year-over-year basis, retail sales fell 5.6 percent on a calendar-adjusted basis.
Macro comment
Unemployment in October: fewer than 300k job vacancies for the first time since 2018
The share of unemployed in the 15-64 population stagnated at 3.5% in October. There were 256 thousand jobseekers registered at the labour offices, the same as September. Unemployment tends to fall in October. The labour market situation has thus deteriorated slightly. Seasonally adjusted, we estimate that the unemployment rate rose by 0.1 percentage point to 3.7%.
