Northern Ireland economy to continue to grow modestly in 2019
The modest economic performance in Northern Ireland continued into the third quarter of 2018. Growth was underpinned by the recovering production sector but the economy remained subdued due to high inflation, Brexit and other local political uncertainties. We estimate that economic growth in Northern Ireland will average 1.1% in 2018 and, assuming that Brexit occurs in an orderly fashion, we are forecasting growth of 1.2% in 2019.
The Northern Ireland economy has continued to benefit from strong jobs growth and we estimate that employment growth will reach 1.9% for the whole of 2018. However, jobs growth is expected to slow to 0.5% in 2019 as momentum begins to cool due to the little spare capacity left in the labour market and firms instead have to focus on increasing productivity.
