Richard Ramsey, economist at Queen’s University business school, said the data showed that the performance of the NI economy in 2025 was not as robust as previously thought.
“The biggest takeaway concerns the revisions to previous data,” he said.
“Over the last six months, economists and business leaders were surprised at the scale of Northern Ireland’s apparent economic outperformance.
“The latest NICEI figures confirm that the scale of NI’s economic growth outperformance isn’t as large as previously stated.
“It is now revealed that private sector output contracted in the third quarter of 2025 by 0.7% as opposed to expanding by +1.2%. Private sector services contracted in the last two successive quarters in 2025.”
Jobs market data, which is more up to date, suggest the NI economy was still creating jobs in recent months.
The HMRC figures estimate there were almost 821,000 people on company payrolls in February, up by around 4,000 since December.
