Why are oil prices such a big deal for the global economy? It's pervasive: a lot goes into transport, involved in the production and consumption of nearly all goods and services. It's also a key feedstock for lubricants, plastics, fibres... so price shocks spread. #dataisbeautiful
A lot of the global balance sheet is vulnerable 'paper wealth'. The UK balance sheet had already seen a significant adjustment, so might now be more resilient. Nevertheless, investing in productivity-enhancing assets remains a priority. New article: bit.ly/3PpLhAF #dataisbeautiful
Great illlustration of the gap between AI's capabilities and how we use it currently (from: bit.ly/3Nh2c81). No wonder we don't yet see many aggregate impacts in the UK labour markets (even though inside jobs, ways of working are changing rapidly). Our article: mck.co/4b8w4wh #dataisbeautiful
The Spring Statement 2026 was indeed a fiscal event with zero new policy measures and, in total, the smallest number of policies costed since 2014 [when I started tracking this]. Let's hope it is a start of a trend, towards fewer but more material reforms. #dataisbeautiful
The flipside of #AI not showing up in #productivity is that it's also not showing up in the labour market. Demand for AI-exposed jobs has increased. The (modest) decline for typically young graduate jobs is public sector driven. Read productivity article here: mck.co/4b8w4wh #dataisbeautiful
UK's #productivity growth might finally be picking up - but not particularly in sectors impacted by #AI. So what is going on and why is AI not yet boosting productivity (at the sector/economy level), despite its enormous potential? Read the full story here:https://mck.co/4b8w4wh #dataisbeautiful
If #AI is boosting UK #productivity, it's not yet showing up in the statistics. This is not a surprise, given the 'ladder of leakage': AI benefits leak out at every stage of aggregation, from tasks to teams to firms to sectors to the economy. Full article here: mck.co/4b8w4wh #dataisbeautiful
#AI adoption drives productivity growth, right? Just see the chart below (R2 = .37, p < 0.01)! Wait - have a closer look. AI-exposed sectors' productivity grew faster until Q1 2020, pre-ChatGPT. Check out the real story in our upcoming article (will post link here when live). #dataisbeautiful
Today's ONS release on healthy life expectancy (HLE, bit.ly/4cz4rxB) makes for grim reading. Since 2011-13, public expenditure per capita on health has increased by 25% in real terms, but HLE has dropped, and more steeply for women than men. #dataisbeautiful
I feel sorry for Claude Code having to deal with ONS nightmare spreadsheets :-( I mean, rather him than me, and for a while I thought the nightmare spreadsheets problem was 'over' because Claude was so obliging. But now I can see it's using up a lot of my valuable tokens!!! #dataisbeautiful
Unfortunately, the expected #productivity #growth revival is rather hard to detect so far... Even the RTI experimental statistics suggest growth stalled in Q4 2025. On both measures, output per hour is lower than Q2 2021... Not great for living standards. #dataisbeautiful
UK #unemployment rose to 5.2%, with an increasing gap between male (5.7%) and female (4.7%) unemployment. Many factors are driving this, but one is weakness in sectors with traditionally more male workers, such as construction and transport and storage. #dataisbeautiful
Is the drop in UK business investment in Q4 2025 a cause for concern? Well, we need the more detailed data to know. For now, I'm reassured that (whole economy) investment in intellectual property (incl. R&D) and ICT equipment and other machinery continued to increase. #dataisbeautiful
So "services" made very little contribution to 3-month #GDP growth in Q4 2025. But does it really make sense to lump together accounting and cleaning, retail and computer programming? The "services" label is pretty meaningless. #dataisbeautiful
One of the more striking findings of this excellent MGI report (bit.ly/4cth6lA) is not that demand for AI skills is rising but that demand for people leadership, management, and operational skills is rising. Good AI adoption requires good management! #dataisbeautiful
The UK labour market has slackened considerably in the last year - but it would be really hard to conclude this has anything to do with #AI, at least at the aggregate level. Vacancies and payrolls decreased most in not-very-AI-exposed-sectors. #dataisbeautiful
Imported #inflation continues to abate - but will we see a negative contribution any time soon, to help counter-balance still-elevated domestically driven inflation? #dataisbeautiful
Soon we'll have official data for UK full-year GDP growth in 2025 - likely around 1.4%. That's quite good (Germany 0.4%, France 0.9, EU 1.6%, US ~2.0%). But worth paying attention to sectoral variation (see chart): a lot of growth from business services and public sector. #dataisbeautiful
#AI will create jobs, destroy jobs, and most importantly transform jobs. It is concerning, therefore, that there is an emerging #gender #gap in the attitudes towards and use of AI. This _could_ be just temporary, as the technology evolves, but what if it's not? #dataisbeautiful
As the debate on #AI and #labour markets heats up, pleased to have contributed to this excellent and balanced big read by Anjli Raval in the FT: bit.ly/4rrtyH7. Demand is increasing for graduate jobs with more AI-exposure, indicating the need for AI-related skills. #dataisbeautiful
I had no idea this existed.
A public health dashboard for England, graphing metrics for everything from colds, to measles, to childhood vaccination rates and more.
Fascinating stuff.
https://ukhsa-dashboard.data.gov.uk/
#Data #Datavis #PublicHealth #DataIsBeautiful
#dataisbeautiful, but this is... I guess it could be pretty art (tho super unhelpful, bad viz)
#dataviz #datavisualization
UK #inflation remains high. Mechanistically, the reason is clear: typically, in periods of low inflation, a lot of items' prices are actually decreasing year-on-year. Right now, a lot of items are stuck at 2%+ price increases, and few are showing negative inflation. #dataisbeautiful
Good news alert! Before looking at the chart, where do you think the UK ranks globally in terms of (greenfield) foreign direct investment? Right! #3 is _incredible_ considering that we are #22 by population and #6 by nominal GDP. New McKinsey report here: bit.ly/4qtfQDt #dataisbeautiful
Fascinating detailed industry data on labour #productivity from The Productivity Institute. The ranking of the top and bottom industries has changed little in the last 15 years or so. Interactive data viz here: bit.ly/49BL04m #dataisbeautiful
Will 2026 be the inflection year for the impact of #AI on employment? Only a small number of businesses say AI has reduced their workforce to date, but expectations for the future are higher. Yet, only ~25% of businesses say they have even adopted AI... #dataisbeautiful
Fascinating that most of the fastest-growing jobs in the UK are highly exposed to #AI. [Note: obv some bias here given LinkedIn as data source.] AI both automates (displaces) and aguments (enhances) human labour. Right now, AI-enhanced roles are in high demand. #dataisbeautiful
