\u201cThe good news is that it\u2019s trending in the right direction, it\u2019s just not trending there very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
New orders were the strongest sub-index at 53, but activity and sales remained in contraction territory at 49.3, while employment was weakest at 48.8.<\/p>\n
The BNZ report said employment had now been below 50 for 31 consecutive months.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you take this survey at face value, it still means the services sector in totality is shedding labour rather than employing more people,\u201d Toplis said.<\/p>\n
Toplis said that was consistent with unemployment rising, with BNZ expecting the jobless rate to reach about 5.8% or 5.9% by the end of the year.<\/p>\n
The survey also showed a split between stronger rural and export-linked activity and weaker consumer-facing sectors.<\/p>\n
Transport and storage was the strongest industry group at 57.2, while accommodation, cafes and restaurants were deep in contraction at 36.3.<\/p>\n
Rich said the hardest-hit parts of the sector were those most exposed to discretionary spending, \u201cwhere households are still holding on to their money for fuel, food and other essentials\u201d.<\/p>\n
Toplis said rural- and export-linked sectors were doing well, while hospitality was still struggling, reflecting a \u201csplit economy\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said the lift in new orders was a forward indicator and suggested \u201cbetter times ahead\u201d.<\/p>\n
BNZ said the lift in services and manufacturing suggested economic growth could soon climb to about 2%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe good news is that it\u2019s trending in the right direction, it\u2019s just not trending there very quickly.\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[806,1863,51125,138,219,3499,78,111,139,69,1881,10715,12975,1321,44094],"class_list":["post-523204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-as","tag-back","tag-barely","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-growth","tag-in","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-recovery","tag-remains","tag-sector","tag-services","tag-tentative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}