Services producer prices were on average 2.3% higher in Quarter 1 2023 compared with a year earlier.
The most notable changes in the year were: Air Transport (+20.4%), Postal & Courier (+13.1%), Employment & Human Resource Activities (+7.4%) and Sea & Coastal Transport (-8.2%).
Services producer prices increased by 1.1 % in the quarter, which compares with the increase of 0.3% recorded in Q4 2022.
The most notable quarterly price changes were: Air Transport (+7.6%), Employment & Human Resource Activities (+6.1%) and Sea & Coastal Transport (-10.3%).
The Services Producer Price Index (SPPI) is an experimental release, with a limited sample of services covering a limited range of services sectors. This means that changes in some of the sub-indices for services sectors are based on prices charged for a small number of services products. This can result in high volatility (i.e. large changes in the values of the indices) which is not always representative of the wider sector. The SPPI is currently being redeveloped, and the updated SPPI series will address these issues.
Figure 1 presents the annual change for the Services Producer Price Index (SPPI) from Quarter 1 (Q1) 2021 through to Q1 2023
| Period | Annual % change |
|---|---|
| Q1 2021 | -0.8 |
| Q2 2021 | 0.1 |
| Q3 2021 | 1.9 |
| Q4 2021 | 2.6 |
| Q1 2022 | 4.1 |
| Q2 2022 | 4 |
| Q3 2022 | 3.5 |
| Q4 2022 | 2.3 |
| Q1 2023 | 2.3 |
Figure 2 shows the annual price changes for several NACE sectors in Q1 2023, while Figure 3 shows the contribution of each of these sectors towards the overall annual change in services producer prices.
| X-axis label | Annual % change |
|---|---|
| Freight and Removal by Road | 1.9 |
| Sea and Coastal Transport | -8.2 |
| Air Transport | 20.4 |
| Warehousing, Storage and Cargo Handling | 4.3 |
| Postal and Courier | 13.1 |
| Computer Programming and Consultancy | 0 |
| Legal, Accounting, PR and Business Consultancy | 2.4 |
| Architecture, Engineering and Technical Testing | -0.7 |
| Advertising, Media Rep. and Market Research | 0 |
| Employment and Human Resource Activities | 7.4 |
| Security and Investigation | -6.1 |
| Industrial and Building Cleaning | 2.5 |
| X-axis label | Annual % change |
|---|---|
| Freight and Removal by Road | 10.1 |
| Sea and Coastal Transport | 23.1 |
| Air Transport | 24.8 |
| Warehousing, Storage and Cargo Handling | 17 |
| Postal and Courier | 16.4 |
| Computer Programming and Consultancy | 0.7 |
| Legal, Accounting, PR and Business Consultancy | 3 |
| Architecture, Engineering and Technical Testing | -0.5 |
| Advertising, Media Rep. and Market Research | 0 |
| Employment and Human Resource Activities | 7.2 |
| Security and Investigation | 8.9 |
| Industrial and Building Cleaning | 4.8 |
| X-axis label | Annual % Contribution |
|---|---|
| Freight and Removal by Road | 0.0563735810605575 |
| Sea and Coastal Transport | -0.0663809538343577 |
| Air Transport | 1.52440323895624 |
| Warehousing, Storage and Cargo Handling | 0.0322533892114352 |
| Postal and Courier | 0.231039148315456 |
| Computer Programming and Consultancy | 0 |
| Legal, Accounting, PR and Business Consultancy | 0.396231819116369 |
| Architecture, Engineering and Technical Testing | -0.0293545825835302 |
| Advertising, Media Rep. and Market Research | 0 |
| Employment and Human Resource Activities | 0.186932734583153 |
| Security and Investigation | -0.0453320129139937 |
| Industrial and Building Cleaning | 0.0204461291319515 |
| X-axis label | Annual % change |
|---|---|
| Freight and Removal by Road | 0.31 |
| Sea and Coastal Transport | 0.19 |
| Air Transport | 1.88 |
| Warehousing, Storage and Cargo Handling | 0.12 |
| Postal and Courier | 0.27 |
| Computer Programming and Consultancy | 0.39 |
| Legal, Accounting, PR and Business Consultancy | 0.46 |
| Architecture, Engineering and Technical Testing | -0.2 |
| Advertising, Media Rep. and Market Research | 0 |
| Employment and Human Resource Activities | 0.17 |
| Security and Investigation | 0.06 |
| Industrial and Building Cleaning | 0.04 |
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (15 June 2023) released Services Producer Price Index Quarter 1 2023.
Commenting on the release, Mary Heanue, Statistician in the Prices Division, said: "Services Prices charged to businesses in January, February and March (Q1) 2023 were on average 2.3% higher compared with the same quarter in 2022. This figure remains unchanged when compared to Quarter 4 2022. See Figure 1.
Almost two-thirds of the annual price change for services producer prices observed in the year to Quarter 1 2023 was due to the increased costs of Air Transport (1.5 percentage points of 2.3%) while Legal, Accounting, PR & Business Consultancy accounted for a further 0.4 percentage points of the change." See Figure 3 and Table 3.