WITH the weather in Scotland almost as glorious as the footballing style of the Croatian national team at a fascinating World Cup, we should not be surprised retailers enjoyed buoyant trading in June.
Scotland, for the first time in any month since July 2013, achieved a sharper year-on-year rise in retail sales value than the UK as a whole.
Total sales value north of the Border in June was up 2.7% on the same month of 2017, the latest figures from the Scottish Retail Consortium reveal.
June was the second consecutive month in which the Scottish retail sector enjoyed some relief from the UK’s economic travails, with sales having also been boosted in May by weather.
The big problem, for consumers and the retail sector alike, is that, while glorious weather and good football might lift the mood for a little while, the underlying problems remain the same.
After so many years of Conservative austerity, and with the Brexit fiasco having exacerbated the UK’s economic woes very significantly in recent times, the fact of the matter is household incomes remain under severe pressure.
Read More: Ian McConnell: Move by unlikely bedfellows highlights diabolical Brexit shambles
Official data yesterday showed average earnings for employees in Great Britain in the three months to May were up just 0.2% on a year earlier in real terms. And let us not forget the protracted real-terms slide in earnings endured by households over recent years.
Read More: Brexit drag on Scottish and wider UK economy forecast to continue
Regardless of how upbeat consumers might feel in the sunshine, their ability to spend will ultimately be constrained by the realities of extremely weak real pay growth and the UK economy’s protracted miserable performance.
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