UK November final services PMI 47.6 vs 45.8 prelim

  
  Analysis

Latest data released by Markit/CIPS – 3 December 2020

  • Composite PMI 49.0 vs 47.4 prelim
The preliminary report can be found here. That’s a modest revision in the final reading but it still affirms that business activity is experiencing a renewed downturn upon the return of lockdown measures last month.
The drop in services output is the first since June but there is a positive, as business optimism reaches its highest level since February (and this is even before accounting for the vaccine news yesterday). Markit notes that:

 

“New lockdown measures and tighter pandemic restrictions unsurprisingly tipped UK private sector output back into decline during November. However, the collateral damage on areas outside of hospitality, leisure and travel has been far more modest than in the first lockdown period. Back in April, nearly 80% of all service providers reported a monthly drop in business activity, while the equivalent figure was only 30% in November.

“The final Services PMI reading is also almost two points higher than the earlier ‘flash’ estimate of 45.8, highlighting that the speed of the downturn was not as steep as suggested by the early responses to the survey in November. Overall service sector output was still severely impacted by widespread business closures among consumer-facing service providers, but other types of firms often commented on successfully adapting to the new lockdown restrictions and seeing a reduced impact on client spending than initially expected.

“Hopes that the pandemic will be brought under control from an effective vaccine resulted in a sharp improvement in business optimism during November. Across the UK private sector as a whole, confidence about the year ahead outlook reached its highest since March 2015. That said, survey respondents also cited rising business uncertainty in the short-term, largely due to ongoing restrictions on trade, which contributed to another round of job cuts and efforts to rein in discretionary spending during November.”

Go to top