Next week's economics: Dec 2 - 6

One reason for this is that uncertainty about the general election result and Brexit has caused firms to put some projects on hold. But this isn’t the whole story, as other figures next week will show. In the eurozone, purchasing managers are likely to confirm that manufacturing is still in decline while the services sector is barely growing. This means there’s a lack of demand for UK goods and services from our main trading partner.

But here we might see tiny glimmers of hope. Purchasing managers might report that the fall in manufacturing output is at least slowing down. This could be consistent with official figures from Germany, which might show that industrial production rose in October implying that output might be more or less stabilising. And official figures for the eurozone as a whole could show that retail sales volumes in the region are some 2.5 per cent up on a year ago; consumers are in better spirits than industrialists.

We might also get good news from China, where purchasing managers could report that manufacturing is growing at its fastest rate since January 2017 – although this will still be only at a snail’s pace thanks in part to the trade war.

In the US, expect mixed signals. On the one hand, purchasing managers could say that manufacturing output is still falling. But on the other, labour market data should show that firms created a net 150,000 jobs in November, keeping the unemployment rate near a 50-year low of 3.6 per cent. This is not, however, igniting wage growth: this is likely to be around 3 per cent, lower than it was earlier this year.

Back in the UK, watch out for the Halifax’s measure of house prices on Thursday. This could post a third successive monthly decline, leaving the annual increase below 1 per cent – which means prices are falling in real terms. It might be too glib to blame such weakness only upon Brexit uncertainty. Still-high prices and still-weak wage growth are also to blame.