New measure, old story

This month the ONS has changed the way that it measures GDP.

So today’s release compares the latest three months with the previous three months, rather than the standard quarterly measure.

On this basis GDP rose by 0.3 per cent into May, following a rise of 0.2 per cent into April.

The new measure means we can chart the evolution of GDP growth more often, but there’s also likely to be more focus on individual monthly figures instead of the rolling three-month average.

The ONS commentary includes a small table and offers only a few sentences on the new measure (including the health warning we’ve highlighted below).