Shifting into growth mode is a move in the right direction, but service sector activity, which accounts for the bulk of U.S. economic output, is still at depressed levels. The non-manufacturing reading comes just days after a separate ISM index of manufacturing activity showed it was growing at a much faster pace than its service counterpart.<\/p>\n
“Our best guess is that the non-manufacturing index is being weighed down by the continuing weakness of retail sales and domestic demand in general,\u0094 Paul Ashworth<\/strong>, a Capital Economics<\/strong> Ltd. economist said in a note to clients. \u0093The non-manufacturing survey is also doing a better job of picking up the continuing difficulties at small firms, who can’t get the credit from their banks to boost employment or investment.\u0094<\/p>\n The details of the report didn\u0092t offer signs of a vigorous rebound. New orders expanded at a faster pace last month and business activity continued to expand, albeit at a slower rate. But just four out of 15 industries reported growth and the orders backlog contracted at a faster pace.<\/p>\n The employment index improved but stayed below the 50-level as companies continue to be hesitant to add workers until it\u0092s clear that the recent improvement in business activity is sustainable.<\/p>\n \u0093Companies are really going to take that wait and see approach,\u0094 said Anthony Nieves<\/strong>, chair of the non-manufacturing survey committee. He noted that, in their comments, companies said there were maintaining hiring freezes and leaving open positions unfilled.<\/p>\n The service sector grew last month but remains feeble as high unemployment and tight credit put pressure on consumers and businesses alike. The Institute for Supply Management\u0092s non-manufacturing index, which primarily covers the service sector, rose to 50.5 from 49.8 in December, the industry group said Wednesday. Levels above 50 indicate expansion. Shifting into growth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":850,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-271642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/850"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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