Information Note Industrial Production and Turnover February 2020 (Final) March 2020 (Provisional)

Data for the Industrial Production and Turnover Index (IPT) is collected monthly from a sample of 1081 enterprises. Despite the current difficult circumstances, many enterprises have continued to supply us with this information and we wish to thank all survey respondents for their support.
Overall the response rate was broadly comparable to the average response rate for IPT. However, due to temporary closure and the difficulties faced by businesses, the response rate for the March 2020 IPT, in certain NACE groups was lower than normally expected. We hope that these businesses will be in a position to provide us with the data at a future date.

Seasonal Adjustment

The March figures, and subsequent months, are an exception to existing seasonal patterns. We have tested the data and treated March as an additive outlier for certain sectors but not all. This reflects the volatile nature of some sectors and will be reviewed going forward as required. Users should be aware that further observations, as data becomes available in the months ahead, and revisions to the seasonal adjustment models may result in revisions to the seasonally adjusted series.

Weights

The IPT index weights are based on 2015 data (base year = 2015) and may not reflect the current distribution of economic activity in the sector due to the Covid-19 crisis.

April 2020

The CSO wishes to thank all those enterprises who supplied their industrial production and turnover data for March and urge them to continue to do so for April, even where production and or turnover may be reduced or nil if an enterprise has temporarily stopped production. Such information is still needed to measure the precise impact of the crisis on the industrial sector. The April Industrial Production and Turnover Index is planned for publication on 8 June.