Economy

ISM Report on Business: U.S. Service Sector Cooled in August

Service sector employee, nurse at a hospital. (Photo: REUTERS)

The Non-Manufacturing ISM Report On Business, the Institute for Supply Management gauge of service-sector growth declined to 51.4 in August, down from 55.5 in July. The reading also fell short of the expectation for a reading of 55.7 Readings above 50 indicate expansion, while those below point to contraction

ISM^® NON-MANUFACTURING SURVEY RESULTS AT A GLANCE COMPARISON OF ISM^® NON-MANUFACTURING AND ISM^® MANUFACTURING SURVEYS* AUGUST 2016
	Non-Manufacturing						Manufacturing
Index	Series Index Aug	Series Index Jul	Percent Point Change	Direction	Rate of Change	Trend** (Months)	Series Index Aug	Series Index Jul	Percent Point Change
NMI^®/PMI^®	51.4	55.5	-4.1	Growing	Slower	79	49.4	52.6	-3.2
Business Activity/Production	51.8	59.3	-7.5	Growing	Slower	85	49.6	55.4	-5.8
New Orders	51.4	60.3	-8.9	Growing	Slower	85	49.1	56.9	-7.8
Employment	50.7	51.4	-0.7	Growing	Slower	3	48.3	49.4	-1.1
Supplier Deliveries	51.5	51.0	+0.5	Slowing	Faster	8	50.9	51.8	-0.9
Inventories	48.0	54.0	-6.0	Contracting	From Growing	1	49.0	49.5	-0.5
Prices	51.8	51.9	-0.1	Increasing	Slower	5	53.0	55.0	-2.0
Backlog of Orders	49.5	51.0	-1.5	Contracting	From Growing	1	45.5	48.0	-2.5
New Export Orders	46.5	55.5	-9.0	Contracting	From Growing	1	52.5	52.5	0.0
Imports	50.5	53.0	-2.5	Growing	Slower	7	47.0	52.0	-5.0
Inventory Sentiment	64.0	63.0	+1.0	Too High	Faster	231	N/A	N/A	N/A
Customers’ Inventories	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	49.5	51.0	-1.5
Overall Economy				Growing	Slower	85
Non-Manufacturing Sector				Growing	Slower	79

* Non-Manufacturing ISM^® Report On Business^® data is seasonally adjusted for Business Activity, New Orders, Prices and Employment Indexes. Manufacturing ISM^® Report On Business^® data is seasonally adjusted for New Orders, Production, Employment and Supplier Deliveries.

** Number of months moving in current direction.

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PPD Business Staff

PPD Business, the economy-reporting arm of People's Pundit Daily, is "making sense of current events." We are a no-holds barred, news reporting pundit of, by, and for the people.