- Prior 48.1
- Final Composite PMI 49.5 vs 48.0 prelim
- Prior 48.8
Key findings:
- Business activity falls for third month running, but cost pressures ease substantially
- June sees further, albeit slightly slower, drop in business activity
- Input price inflation retreats to seven-month low
- Employment falls at weakest rate in current sequence of job losses
Comment:
Phil Smith, Economics Associate Director at S&P Global Market Intelligence:
“The service sector continues to suffer from the generally more challenging economic backdrop seen since the start of the Middle East war, with demand under pressure from lower market confidence, higher prices and tighter financial conditions. The pace of contraction in services business activity in June was the weakest seen since the downturn began in April, but the headline index nevertheless pointed to the sector’s worst quarterly performance for three-and-a-half years.
“Encouragingly, cost pressures subsided considerably across the service sector in June, helped by the reduced price of fuel. However, the dynamics for the coming months are somewhat unclear, as whilst global oil prices have fallen closer to pre-conflict levels, the temporary fuel tax cut has now ended and developments in the Middle East remain unpredictable.
“On the labour market front, whilst services firms have slowed the pace of job losses, a steep and accelerated reduction in backlogs of work points to low capacity pressures in the sector and suggests there will be little appetite for hiring in the coming months.”
This article was written by Giuseppe Dellamotta at investinglive.com.
