Output contracted at the sharpest rate in over 11 years, as the manufacturing downturn continued and services activity fell to the greatest extent in the survey history.
The J.P.Morgan Global Composite Output Index – which is produced by J.P.Morgan and IHS Markit in association with ISM and IFPSM – fell to a 133-month low of 39.4 in March.
Furthermore, the month-on-month drop in the index level (6.7 points) was the second-steepest in the series history.
The current record was set in October 2001.
Notes: due to a later-than-usual release date, the Manufacturing PMI data for India and Mexico and Services PMI data for India were not included in the March Global PMI calculation.
The latest data were collected between 12th27th March, encompassing a time when the virus spread further from its origin in China to other Asian countries, Europe and the Americas.
The global service sector saw business activity, new business and new export business all contract at the steepest rates in the survey history.
All the services PMI surveys signaled declines in output.
The downturn in services was also much sharper than that signaled for manufacturing production.
Only China recorded an increase in manufacturing output, although this merely represented a stabilization from a severe downturn in February.
New manufacturing order intakes contracted at the steepest pace since early-2009, with new export orders falling at the quickest pace in almost 11 years.
Output contracted across all six of the sub-sectors covered by the survey.
The steepest declines were registered in the consumer services and business services categories.
A near-identical picture was also shown for trends in new business inflows into each sector.
China saw a marked easing in its rate of contraction, with its composite Output Index rising from 27.5 in February to 46.7 in March.
The United States saw the weakest downturn of the largest developed world economies, but business activity still slumped to the greatest extent since the height of the global financial crisis.
Business activity in Japan contracted at the sharpest rate since 2009 with the exception of the tsunami and earthquake crisis in 2011.
With various eurozone countries stepping up measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the final Output PMI indicated the steepest collapse of business activity since data were first available in 1998, plunging from 51.6 to an all-time low of 29.7.
The UK Composite Output Index fell from 53.0 to an all-time low of 36.0.
Global employment fell to the greatest extent since July 2009.
Job losses were seen across all the nations covered by the survey.
Average output charges fell for the first time since February 2016 and to one of the greatest extents in the series history.
Input price inflation eased to a five-year low.
Business activity, new orders and new export orders in the global services economy all contracted at survey-record rates in March.
The J.P.Morgan Global Services Business Activity Index fell to 37.0, down from 47.1 in February, to stay below the neutral 50.0 mark for the second successive month.
Employment fell at the fastest pace in over a decade.
The substantial downturn was mainly due to disruption caused by the global COVID-19 outbreak.
The severity of the impact was emphasized by series-record month-on-month declines in the levels of indices tracking output (down 10.1 points), new orders (down 9.4), outstanding business (7.3 lower), new export orders (down 10.4) and future activity (13.1 lower).
Confidence regarding future output also dropped to a recordlow in March.
Companies signalled that they expect output to contract (on average) over the coming year for the first time since future output data were first collected in October 2009. ■