Ireland's services sector grows for 11th month running

Increased sales and tourism in Ireland are attributed to an 11th consecutive month of growth in the country’s services sector in June.
 
According to Investec’s monthly Services Purchasing Managers’ Index, employment in the services sector rose at its sharpest rate since January. The headline index, which provides an overall measure of the health of the industry, rose to 54.9 in June, up from 52.7 in May.
 
The survey suggested a broad improvement of the industry’s four main sub-sectors – business services, financial services, telecoms, media and technology, and transport and leisure.
 
Philip O’Sullivan, chief economist at Investec Ireland, spoke of the "very encouraging" data and declared it was a sign of fast-growing demand for jobs in the industry.
 
"A particular highlight within today’s report is the employment component, which points to the sharpest rate of job creation since January," he said.
 
"Services firms in Ireland have been adding workers for each of the past 10 months. This growth is widespread, with unadjusted data for each of the four sub-sectors covered by the survey posting an increase in employment during June, the third month running in which this has been the case."
 
Encouragingly, Irish services firms were more profitable, increasing during Q2 2013 for the first time since December 2007. This improvement has been linked to increased sales and improved efficiency at limiting costs and overheads.
 
In the UK, the services sector expanded at its fastest pace for more than two years, with growth supported by the strongest gain in new business since June 2007.
 
However, worrying data from Asia indicates the services sector in China was rather more sluggish, with new orders growing at their slowest pace in more than four years; providing further evidence that the world’s second-largest economy was losing momentum.

Date published 4 Jul 2013 | Last updated 4 Jul 2013