Retail sales expected to rise

Flat retail sales volumes in the year to June disappointed retailers’ hopes of modest growth.
Growth better than the year-on-year fall in sales seen last month, which was the first decline since April 2012.
Orders were broadly flat on a year ago, although they surpassed expectations of a third consecutive fall.
Sales volumes were a fair way below average for the time of year in June, despite expectations they would be broadly in line with seasonal norms.
Stock adequacy picked up on last month, in line with its long-run average.
The outlook is a little brighter for next month, when retailers expect sales volumes to increase.

Value of education rises in crisis

The jobs gap between well-educated young people and those who left school early has continued to widen during the crisis. A good education is the best insurance against a lack of work experience
Unemployment rates are nearly three times higher among people without an upper secondary education (13% on average across OECD countries) than among those who have a tertiary education (5%).
Between 2008 and 2011, the unemployment rate for the poorly-educated rose by around 4 percentage points, while it increased by only 1.5 percentage points for the highly educated.
The crisis has also widened the earnings gap: the average difference in earnings from employment between the low educated and the highly educated has risen from 75% across OECD countries in 2008 to 90% in 2011. On average, the relative earnings of tertiary-educated adults are over 1.5 times that of adults with upper secondary education. People with upper secondary education earn 25% more than their peers who left school early.
The crisis has halted the long-term trend of rising investment in education. Public spending on educational institutions between 2009 and 2010 as a percentage of GDP fell by 1% on average across the OECD area.

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis which erupted in 2008, some advanced economies have managed to recover some of the jobs lost
Europe, by contrast, is still confronted with significant challenges and in many respects its labour market and social outlook continues to deteriorate
On the present course, global unemployment is expected to approach 208 million in 2015, up from 200 million today
Long-standing labour market imbalances – such as high levels of labour market informality in developing countries and long-term unemployment in advanced economies – will remain acute

I’ve been away and it might take a while for me to catch up – but here we go

Footfall in May was 0.7% lower than a year ago, down from the 1.0% rise in April.
Footfall in out-of-town locations continued its good performance from April, rising 1.2% in May compared with a year ago, its best performance since November 2012.
The high street (-1.0%) and shopping centre (-1.7%) locations both reported footfall below the UK average.
The hardest hit parts of the UK were Northern Ireland (-3.1%), the West Midlands (-2.9%) and East Midlands (-2.6%).

It has taken a few years, but they’ve done the right thing at last