The Commonwealth Bank Flash Services Business Activity Index is designed to provide a timely indication of changes in business activity in the Australian service sector economy as a whole. Readings above 50.0 signal an improvement in business activity on the previous month, while readings below 50.0 show deterioration. Services business activity ticked up in April, thereby ending a two-month sequence of decline. The rate of expansion was only marginal, however, as new orders were broadly unchanged. Meanwhile, service sector employment decreased for the first time in the survey’s three-year history amid reports of a lack of work. Falling workforce numbers led to a slower rise in input costs, while output prices also increased at a weaker pace.
And the big but:
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David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
