Growth across British services companies fell to a four-month low in June and companies were their least optimistic in nearly a year, according to a survey that could disappoint Bank of England officials who want to raise interest rates.
Although the survey suggested Britain’s economy recovered some momentum in the second quarter and probably expanded at a quarterly pace of around 0.4 percent, there were ominous signals for the second half of 2017.
Markit/CIPS UK Services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) edged down to a four-month low of 53.4 in June from 53.8 in May, just shy of a forecast for 53.5 in a poll of economists.
Britain’s economy barely grew in the first three months of the year as consumers faced both accelerating inflation, caused in large part by the fall in the pound since the Brexit vote, and slowing wage growth.
The PMI showed business expectations sank to their weakest level since last July’s dip after the vote to leave the European Union, and it was not far off the lows last reached in late 2011. Growth in new orders hit a nine-month low.
So far, this week all the UK data has shown growth has fallen over each sector, this does not bode well for the UK industrial and Manufacturing data due on Friday.