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Progress in UK enterprise exercise edged up in January however job cuts continued as price inflation accelerated, in keeping with a carefully watched survey pointing to a “stagflationary environment”.
The S&P International flash UK PMI composite output index, which tracks exercise within the non-public sector, rose to a three-month excessive of fifty.9 factors in January from 50.4 in December.
Economists polled by Reuters had anticipated the index to fall barely to 50 factors. Any studying above the 50 mark suggests that the majority companies are reporting progress in exercise.
Regardless of the rise within the composite index, employment ranges fell for the fourth month in a row in keeping with the survey, with companies usually linking this to rising price pressures. S&P International mentioned that, excluding the pandemic interval, the speed of job losses signalled by the PMI over the previous two months was the very best because the world monetary disaster in 2009.
Chris Williamson, economist at S&P International Market Intelligence, mentioned the survey’s outcomes “add to the gloom about the UK economy, with companies cutting employment amid falling sales and concerns about business prospects”.
He warned that inflationary pressures had “reignited, pointing to a stagflationary environment which poses a growing policy quandary for the Bank of England”.
