The services sector in the United States has eased for the 3rd month in a row this June. It has been pressured by a slowdown in output growth as well as in employment.
Markit, the financial firm says that their final readings of the Purchasing Managers Index for services has fallen to 54.8 this June. This matches their preliminary reading as well.
Any reading which is over fifty is said to signal expansion of economic activities.
The May reading of fresh business in the services industry was higher than that of the previous month and was also higher than its preliminary reading.
The employment component of the services index fell to 54.1 from 55.5 the previous month. This was its highest achieved level since June of 2014.
The composite PMI of Markit, which is a weighted average of the manufacturing & services indexes, was at 54.6 as well. This matched its preliminary reading as well and was down from the previous month when it was 56. Just last week, the final read on the United States manufacturing activity showed that growth had fallen to its slowest ever pace since way back in October of 2013.
Even though moderate growth was still being signaled in June, the manufacturing & services sector survey indicated that economic expansion has slowed down quite substantially since the beginning of this quarter. At that time, business got a boost from a rebound to weather related weaknesses.
As per the Chief Economist at Markit, Chris Williamson, the surveys showed a loss of growth momentum which meant that the GDP growth may just slacken off once again in the 3rd quarter and hiring would most likely ease off as well.
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Article from USA today “Growth in U.S. services firms rises in June by Josh Boak, The Associated Press 12 p.m. EDT July 6, 2015.” This is what they said, “The Institute for Supply Management said Monday that its services index edged up to 56 in June from 55.7 in May. Any reading over 50 indicates that services firms are expanding.” Its funny how you can have it both ways.