GROWTH in UK manufacturing activity slowed in August from an already-sluggish pace, and the sector’s workforce shrank for the first time in 26 months as export orders continued to fall, a survey has revealed.
The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply survey provides yet further evidence of the unbalanced nature of the UK’s belated economic recovery.
CIPS’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for UK manufacturing, which measures changes in output, new orders, employment, suppliers’ delivery times and stocks of goods purchased, fell from 51.9 in July to 51.5 in August on a seasonally-adjusted basis to signal a slowing of the sector’s expansion.
Although the manufacturing PMI remained above the level of 50 deemed to separate expansion from contraction, CIPS highlighted the fact that it pointed to only a “sluggish” performance.
The survey showed a fifth consecutive month of falling new export orders for the UK manufacturing sector.
CIPS’s manufacturing employment index fell from 51.5 in July to 49.9 in August to signal the first monthly fall in the sector’s workforce for more than two years.
Rob Dobson, senior economist at survey compiler Markit, said: “The UK manufacturing sector remains in a holding pattern, with production growth hovering around the stagnation mark and marginal job losses reported for the first time in 26 months.
“On this basis, the sector looks unlikely to make much of a contribution to the solid gain in broader GDP (gross domestic product) growth expected for the third quarter.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel