{"id":1592749,"date":"2022-08-07T07:16:43","date_gmt":"2022-08-07T11:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1592749"},"modified":"2022-08-07T07:16:50","modified_gmt":"2022-08-07T11:16:50","slug":"u-s-services-sector-picks-up-as-supply-and-price-pressures-ease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/u-s-services-sector-picks-up-as-supply-and-price-pressures-ease\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Services Sector Picks Up as Supply and Price Pressures Ease"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fu-s-services-sector-picks-up-as-supply-and-price-pressures-ease%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1592749&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The U.S. services industry picked up in July as new manufacturing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-orders\">orders<\/a> saw steady increases with 26 consecutive<span class=\"paywall-full-content\">\u00a0months of expansion<\/span>, according to the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ismworld.org\/supply-management-news-and-reports\/reports\/ism-report-on-business\/services\/july\/\">survey<\/a> released on Aug. 4.<\/p>\n<p>The survey comes after the Commerce Department reported that the U.S. economy contracted by 1.3 percent in the first half of 2022, confirming that the country is in a recession after two consecutive quarters of negative <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-growth\">growth<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The ISM\u2019s composite services index increased to 56.7 percent in July, rising 1.4 points from 55.3 percent in June and ending three months of consecutive declines.<\/p>\n<p>Wells Fargo economists\u00a0Tim Quinlan and\u00a0Shannon Seery analyzed the report in a note.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe ISM services index not only defied the consensus expectation for a decline but rose by the most in five months in July,\u201d the note said.<\/p>\n<p>Supply bottlenecks also appeared to have eased in July, as the measure of prices paid by businesses fell to their lowest level since 2017, due in part to declining commodity prices.<\/p>\n<p>The supplier delivery index, which measures the delivery times for suppliers to nonmanufacturers, fell to 57.8 percent from 61.9 percent in the previous month. Suppliers fell further behind in deliveries to services, but the delays have lessened from the previous month.<\/p>\n<p>ISM\u2019s services employment index rose in July coming in at 49.1 percent, up from 47.4 percent in June, with eight industries reporting growth in employment while seven saw a downturn.<\/p>\n<p>Skilled labor continues to be is in short supply, particularly in trucking, and competition between firms for employees remains intense.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGiven the uptick in current activity and new orders, service providers are still finding it necessary to hire, even if the need for labor is not as great as it has been over the past two years,\u201d Quinlan and Seery wrote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe expect demand for labor is starting to ease more meaningfully as the labor market shows signs of cooling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The business activity index gained 3.8 points to 59.9, up from 56.1 in June, with 13 industries reporting growth, including mining, construction, and transportation, while agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, retail trade, finance, and insurance reported slower activity.<\/p>\n<h2>Economy Still Showing Weakness<\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"paywall-full-content\">Despite gains, many respondents remain cautious, as price and labor pressures continue to persist and signs of weakening demand are starting to accumulate.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"paywall-full-content rkA baA\">\n<p class=\"rkB baU\">New nonmanufacturing export orders rose to 59.5 in July, up from 57.5 in June. Six industries reported growth in export orders, six showed declines, and another six reported no change from June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rkB baU\">Only about 21 percent of the companies surveyed said they track performance activity from outside the country.<\/p>\n<p>The new orders index rose to 59.9 percent from 55.6 percent in June, an increase of 4.3 percentage points.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rkB baU\">Backlogs of orders grew again in July for the 19th consecutive month, though the pace decelerated as the index decreased to 58.3 percent from 60.5 percent in June. Nine\u00a0industries reported higher backlogs in July, while five others saw declines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rkB baU\">The rebound in the services sector was in contrast to the\u00a0S&#038;P Global survey reporting a decline in the services sector in July, and the ISM\u2019s Manufacturing Index survey from August 1, which saw a moderate slowdown in activity in the same period.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Meanwhile, the nonmanufacturing prices index fell to 72.3 in July, the third consecutive decline from a record-high 84.6 percent in April, with 16 industries reporting paying higher prices for inputs in July.<\/p>\n<div class=\"paywall-full-content rkA baA\">\n<div class=\"rkB baU\">\n<p class=\"rkG\">Respondents highlighted ongoing input price pressures,\u00a0which have eased somewhat, as well as materials and labor shortages, while noting some signs of softening demand amid concern about the economic outlook.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rkG\">\u201cDespite increased concern of a downturn, there was little sign of a slowdown in the details of the report. The increase in the services index was tied to a pickup in broad activity,\u201d Quinlan and Seery said in the note.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rkG\">\u201cWhile the overall report indicates still solid activity in the sector, some selected industry comments from purchasing managers did point to a weakening economic environment and coming headwinds for sales,\u201d they said. \u201cGrowing fears of recession are likely weighing on optimism to some extent.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-bryan-jung\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Bryan S. Jung is a native and resident of New York City with a background in politics and the legal industry. He graduated from Binghamton University.\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. services industry picked up in July as new manufacturing orders saw steady increases with 26 consecutive\u00a0months of expansion, according to the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) survey released<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1592749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1592749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1592749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1592749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1592749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1592749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1592749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}