LONDON, July 3 (Reuters) \u2013 Activity in Britain\u2019s dominant services sector contracted for a second month running in June and by the most since early 2023 as the fallout from the Iran war \u200bcontinued to weigh on companies, a closely watched survey showed on \u200cFriday.<\/p>\n
The S&P Global Purchasing Managers\u2019 Index for the services sector in June fell to 48.8 from May\u2019s 49.3, representing the second fall in a row in activity and the weakest since January 2023.<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s reading was slightly stronger than a preliminary flash estimate of \u200c48.7. \u200bA reading below 50 signals contraction.<\/p>\n
Overall new work \u2060contracted at the fastest pace \u2060since November 2022, with companies citing concerns about who would replace Prime Minister Keir Starmer and their fiscal policies, as well as global inflationary pressures.<\/p>\n
The survey added to signs of a slowdown ahead of former \u200bGreater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham\u2019s likely installation as prime minister.<\/p>\n
\u201cJune data confirmed a clear loss of momentum for the UK economy during the \u2060second quarter of 2026, following a positive \u2060start to the year,\u201d Tim Moore, economics director at S&P \u200bGlobal Market Intelligence, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cStrong cost pressures, lacklustre demand and business uncertainties arising from \u200bthe Middle East conflict were the most prominent themes highlighted \u200cby service sector firms in June.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were signs that inflation pressures eased slightly, although they remained strong. The PMI\u2019s gauge of input cost inflation fell in June to its weakest since March. Businesses said higher input costs were \u2060partly due to rising salaries and transport costs.<\/p>\n
While firms continued to pass on their costs to customers, the increase was at the softest pace since February.<\/p>\n
The \u2060composite PMI, which includes \u200cWednesday\u2019s manufacturing data, was revised down to 49.3 from \u2060a preliminary reading of 49.4, the weakest since April \u200b2025 \u200cand down from 49.7 in May.<\/p>\n
S&P said business sentiment \u200babout the \u2060coming 12 months was the second-lowest since April 2025, but firms turned slightly more optimistic on hopes of a peace deal between the United States and Iran and investment in artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
Hiring contracted for the 21st consecutive month, the longest continuous period of job shedding since February 2010.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Suban Abdulla; Editing \u200bby Toby Chopra)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON, July 3 (Reuters) \u2013 Activity in Britain\u2019s dominant services sector contracted for a second month running in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46],"class_list":["post-523157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}