Prior 52.4Composite PMI 51.3 vs 51.5 prelimPrior 51.5<\/p>\n
Both the services and composite readings are four-month lows, signaling a sustained loss of momentum and
\nleaving the overall rate of growth well below its historical average. The drag in January is largely due to flagging demand conditions as new orders barely rose on the month, while employment stagnated.<\/p>\n
HCOB notes that:<\/p>\n
\u201cService companies in the eurozone have expanded their business activities for the eighth month in a row. The growth
\ntrajectory can be described as decent, but the situation is still not comfortable. Companies hardly hired any new staff in
\nJanuary. The fact that new business barely grew also shows that the recovery in this sector is still fragile.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe expansion of the service sector is relatively broad-based geographically. In Germany, Italy, and Spain, there has been
\ngrowth in each month since September, with France an outlier. There, the difficult political situation appears to be affecting
\nbusiness, which was also reflected in a significant slump in business activity in January. Another dampener is that growth
\nhas slowed significantly in Spain and somewhat in Germany, while Italy has seen a slight acceleration. Overall and on a
\npositive note, service providers are as confident as they were in mid-2024 that they will expand their business activity over
\nthe next twelve months.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe European Central Bank is not currently particularly concerned about inflation, as the inflation target of 2% appears to
\nhave been achieved. However, it is still worth keeping a close eye on services inflation, as it remains quite sticky and if
\nenergy prices rise again \u2013 as they are currently doing due to the cold weather \u2013 the calm could quickly come to an end. In
\nthis respect, ECB members will be a bit concerned by the significant rise in cost inflation in the services sector and the
\nvisible increase in sales prices inflation that was signalled by the PMI. At its meeting on February 5, at which key interest
\nrates are expected to remain unchanged, the ECB could refer to this very point.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prior 52.4Composite PMI 51.3 vs 51.5 prelimPrior 51.5 Both the services and composite readings are four-month lows, signaling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":{"0":"post-448650","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}