Wednesday, October 5, 2011

05/10/2011: Employment conditions in Services & Manufacturing

September PMI for Manufacturing and Services have signaled continued weaknesses in much of the activity, including:
  • Core PMIs: Manufacturing PMI sliding deeper into red at 47.3 in September against 49.7 in August, while Services PMI posting weak growth at 51.3 in September up from 51.1 in August.
  • Overall New Business Activity falling for Services from already contractionary 47.9 in August to 47.5 in September. In Manufacturing, New Orders activity fell from 57.7 in August to a miserable 45.8 in September.
  • Much of the above performance is posting repeats month on month since May-June 2011 and there is little hope for this to change any time soon.


However, it is in the employment sub-indices where the entire nature of our exports-led 'recovery' becomes apparent.
  • Employment sub-index in Manufacturing in September stood at 46.5 down from 51.1 in August, with year-to-date average of 50.7 and Q3 2011 average of 48.9.
  • Employment sub-index in Services in September was 46.0 down from 48.2 in August, marking the fifth consecutive month of contracting employment.

The chart below shows clearly that we are in a jobless 'recovery' scenario for Services (with 'recovery' part of the equation being extremely weak) and in recession scenario for Manufacturing:

And the next chart shows that the 'exports-led recovery' tale is not alleviating the misery of unemployment reality, as predicted.

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