The eurozone’s private sector economy stagnated during October, as signalled by the IHS Markit Eurozone PMI Composite Output Index posting a level of 50.0.
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Whilst an improvement on the earlier flash reading, the index was nonetheless down from 50.4 in September and ended a three month period of growth.
In line with recent developments, the headline index masked the continuation of a two speed economy in October.
Manufacturing output growth was sustained, and to the strongest degree in over twoand a half years.
In stark contrast, service sector activity contracted again, deteriorating to the greatest degree since May.
There was also a notable divergence in activity at the national level.
Led by a resurgent manufacturing sector, Germany was the only nation to register an expansion in private sector activity, with growth here reaching a three month high.
All other nations registered contractions in activity since the previous month with Spain registering by far the sharpest fall, followed by France.
Italy and Ireland recorded marginal declines in activity.
For the first time in four months, levels of incoming new business declined as strong gains in manufacturing new work were more than offset by weakness in services.
There was some positive news on export sales, however, which rose for a second successive month.
A twentieth successive monthly decline in backlogs of work outstanding was signalled during October, although the rate of contraction was marginal and the weakest since February.
Nonetheless, firms were able to comfortably keep on top of their workloads despite another round of job losses.
An eighth successive monthly decline in employment was registered during October, albeit to the weakest degree in the current sequence.
By country, job losses were recorded across all nations, with the sharpest reduction seen in Spain.
The weakest decline was recorded in Germany.
A fifth successive monthly increase in input costs was indicated during October.
Inflation was solid and the strongest recorded since February, with similarly sized increases seen across manufacturing and services. ■