New Zealand Services Index Slips To 44.6 In October - Business NZ

(RTTNews) - The services sector in New Zealand continued to contract in October, and at a faster pace, the latest survey from BusinessNZ revealed on Monday with a Performance of Service Index score of 44.6.

That's down from the downwardly revised 46.5 in September (originally 46.9) and it moves further beneath the boom-or-bust line of 50 that separates expansion from contraction.

Individually, employment was break-even at 50.0, while sales (43.7), deliveries (37.1), stocks (46.6) and new orders (46.4) all contracted.

"The ongoing weakness in services overall - in contrast to the improvement we saw in last week's Performance of Manufacturing Index - fits with our thinking that any bounce in Q4 GDP will be modest, especially in comparison to the decline in Q3," BNZ Senior Economist Doug Steel said.