Norwegians shopped less in June

It happens after an unusually strong month of May with an increase in turnover of 4.7 per cent.

– When we see an unusually large change one month, we like to see a correction in the following month. For May, we saw particularly strong growth, where we have to go back to the pandemic to find corresponding change figures, says first consultant Edvard Garmannslund at Statistics Norway.

The figures for May were characterized by underlying high turnover figures reported from the retail trade, but also uncertainty in the calculation linked to the fact that there were a number of public holidays and public holidays close to the weekends, Statistics Norway informs.

– Strong decline

The figures for June is at an expected level, and the seasonally adjusted figures for the second quarter show a growth in turnover volume of 1 per cent from the first quarter.

– The turnover volume for June is falling back towards a relatively flat trend we have seen in recent months, and we will thus have a sharp decline from the peak in May, says Garmannslund.

Based on the June figures, the May value is thus classified as an extreme value of the seasonal adjustment. This also leads to the growth from April to May being revised upwards from 3.2 to 4.7 per cent.

Even so, this year’s June has been a weaker sales month than June last year.

– In June, most of the overall decline in retail trade came from grocery stores and clothing stores. These are the same industries that accounted for most of the growth in May, says Garmannslund.

– The buying party has been called off until further notice

– We are going from close to an all-time high last survey in May to an all-time low now in June. Nothing has happened in the economy to indicate such huge changes. Therefore, I can see no other explanation than that Statistics Norway is struggling to measure this properly, says chief economist Kyrre M. Knudsen at Sparebank 1 SR-Bank to NTB.

If you look at both months together, it shows a more muted development in trade than you would think, Knudsen points out.

– This correction is good for the interest rate path anyway. This definitely does not indicate the buying spree that the May figures suggested. It would create major challenges for Norges Bank and anyone hoping for an interest rate cut this autumn. Therefore, we can say that the buying party has fortunately been canceled for the time being, says Knudsen.