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The Irish service sector lost all momentum at the start of 2024, amid a slowdown in new business, purchasing managers’ index survey results from S&P Global showed on Tuesday.
The AIB Ireland services business activity index fell to 50.5 points in January from 53.2 in December. Last month’s reading was barely above the 50-point no-change mark and the weakest since March 2021.
The average Irish services sector score during 2023 was a much stronger 55.5 points.
‘Irish firms continued to report rising levels of new business, but the pace of growth eased in January to the second weakest in 13 months,’ commented AIB Chief Economist David McNamara.
‘The volume of outstanding work also fell for the first time in 35 months, albeit only marginally. One bright spot was that new exports order growth accelerated at the fastest pace in five months.’
Services dragged down the overall composite PMI output index to 50.7 points in January from 51.5 in December. This was despite the other component of the composite index, the manufacturing PMI, rising to 49.5 point last month from 48.9 in December.
The services PMI is compiled by S&P Global from the responses to questionnaires sent to a panel of purchasing mangers in about 400 service sector companies in Ireland. Responses are collected in the second half of each month.
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