The scale of forecast revisions in the November Inflation Report will reinforce market scepticism about “forward guidance”.

The MPC has slashed its mean forecast for the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2014 assuming unchanged policy from 7.5% in August to 7.0%. This forecast, moreover, is already out-of-date – it assumed that unemployment would average 7.7% over July-September 2013, versus an outturn reported earlier today of 7.6%.

Based on constant policy, the cumulative probability of the jobless rate reaching 7.0% by the end of next year is judged to be 50%, up from just 23% in August. This probability, presumably, is now greater than 50%, incorporating today’s “surprise”.

The Report states that the downward revision to the unemployment forecast mainly reflects stronger economic growth – assumptions about productivity and labour force expansion are similar to August. The expectation here of a faster unemployment decline rests on greater optimism about near-term growth prospects coupled with a more downbeat view on productivity. The MPC expects the annual change in output per hour to recover from -0.4% in the second quarter to more than 1% by early 2014 but available data suggest that productivity slipped again in the third quarter – see earlier post.

The stronger growth and lower unemployment forecasts were balanced by a significant reduction in the inflation profile for the next 12 months. The two-year-ahead mean inflation projection based on unchanged policy, however, is higher than in August – 2.2% versus 2.1%.

“Forward guidance” was concocted by Governor Carney and Chancellor Osborne in early 2013 amid media hysteria about a “triple-dip” recession. Its introduction in August was spectacularly mistimed to coincide with the onset of an economic boomlet. Governor Carney conveyed a dovish impression at today’s press conference but did not push back against market interest rate expectations and left all policy options open – including a 2014 tightening. His flagship initiative has already run aground and is taking on water.

Today’s strong labour market numbers support the forecast here that the unemployment rate will fall beneath the MPC’s “threshold” by mid-2014 – see previous post. They also imply that productivity performance remains disappointingly weak.

The labour force survey (LFS) measure of the unemployment rate fell to 7.6% (7.61% before rounding) in the three months to September from 7.8% (7.79%) in the prior three months. LFS unemployment needs to decline by 20,000 per month for the rate to breach 7.0% by mid-2014. This looks eminently achievable: the more timely claimant-count measure fell by an average 43,000 per month in the three months to October.

LFS employment has been growing solidly but, in addition, there has been a rise in average weekly hours, for both full- and part-time workers. Aggregate hours worked, therefore, rose by 1.0% in the September quarter from the prior three months. With GDP currently estimated to have increased by 0.8% last quarter, the suggestion is that output per hour is continuing to slip – at odds with the MPC’s view that productivity performance would recover as the economy strengthened.

UK consumer price inflation fell from 2.7% in September to 2.2% in October, below a forecast here of 2.4% (see chart in previous post). The undershoot of 0.2 percentage points reflected a smaller-than-expected rise in student tuition fees in 2013-14, following the raising of the cap on English undergraduate costs in 2012-13.

The focus here is on “core” inflation, i.e. excluding energy and unprocessed food and adjusted for the impact of VAT changes and the increase in the tuition fee cap. As expected, this moved down to a new low of 1.8% in October. A post in August argued that recent weakness stems from a slowdown in money growth in 2010-11. Allowing for a typical two-year lead from monetary changes to prices, core inflation is likely to be at or close to a bottom and should trend higher during 2014 in lagged response to money supply acceleration over 2011-13 – see first chart.

The forecast for headline inflation has been adjusted to take account of recent softer petrol prices and the likelihood of government action to cap future increases in household gas and electricity bills. CPI inflation is projected to fluctuate around the current level over the winter before embarking on a core-driven upward trend next spring, reaching more than 3% in late 2014 – second chart.

Recent business surveys support the view that core pressures are building – the output prices balance of the PMI services survey, for example, reached its highest level since May 2011 last month.

Chinese industrial activity regained momentum over the summer and early autumn but monetary and survey evidence suggests a slowdown into 2014.

Annual industrial output growth edged up from 10.2% to 10.3% in October, while six-month expansion is estimated here to have reached its highest level since July 2012 – see first chart. This revival is consistent with respectable real money supply trends in early 2013 and a rise in the new orders component of the official manufacturing purchasing managers’ survey in the spring and summer.

Six-month real narrow money (M1) growth, however, has fallen sharply since mid-year, reflecting both slower nominal expansion and a food-driven rise in inflation. Allowing for the typical half-year lead, this suggests that the economy will lose momentum around end-2013. A fall in the PMI new orders index in September / October may represent early confirmation of this scenario.

Broad money and credit trends have also softened: real six-month growth in the broad “total social financing” credit measure is estimated to have fallen to its lowest since November 2011 last month – second chart. Real M1 / M2, meanwhile, is expanding more slowly than industrial activity, implying an unfavourable liquidity backdrop for financial markets.

These trends are probably in line with policy goals – the inflation up-tick and bubbling house prices argue against the authorities providing early relief.