The largest weighted negative contribution came from the sector Recreation and culture, goods and services which decreased by 3.4 percent in constant prices compared with November a year ago.

Housing, electricity, gas and heating accounted for the largest weighted positive contribution to total consumption and increased by 4.4 percent in constant prices compared with November a year ago. The main factor behind the increase was (according to preliminary estimations) higher usage of electricity and district heating due to lower temperature compared with November 2022. It should be noted that household interest expenses are not considered consumption.

Correction of the statistics:

When computing the retail sales index for reference month November 2023, problems with constant price calculations were detected, which also affect the monthly indicator of household consumption. The problem is due to price indices used in the calculation of constant prices have been given incorrect weights. When calculating constant prices of consumption coming from retail sales (except petrol stations), the same price indices are used. Checks carried out show that the problem goes back to January 2022, which is why index series in constant prices have been corrected for all periods back to January 2022. Please see the statistical news for the retail sales index November 2023 . For the total household consumption, the largest correction is found in the reference month July 2023, where the annual development is adjusted upwards by 0.6 percentage points. In other periods, the corrections are smaller.

Below graph shows the corrected annual development, working-day adjusted and constant prices, compared to the previous published series for the period January 2022 until October 2023.

The next statistical news in this series is scheduled for publication on 2024-02-09 at 08:00.