Service sector activity in the U.K. jumped in January by the largest amount in a month in nearly a decade to open 2011 as businesses rebounded from harsh winter weather, according to The Daily Telegraph. On Wednesday, the Office for National Statistics reported that services output increase by 1.3% in January from the previous month, which more than reverses the 1.1% decline in December and marks the highest rate of monthly growth since July 2002. The gain came from all five services sub-sectors, led by a 4.4% increase in activity at restaurants.
Alan Clarke of BNP Paribas said, “At face value it is quite robust,” although the ONS said that correcting for weather-related distortions would have yielded a broadly flat trend for January and December as a whole. Clarke added, “It is still early days to gauge the strength of first-quarter growth.” Service sector output for the three months to January grew by 0.6%, accelerating just slightly from the 0.5% growth recorded for the quarter to December. Year over year, output moved up to a 2.2% gain from the 0.4% fall recorded the prior month.