- Anthony Nieves, chair of the ISM Non-Manufacturing Business Survey Committee
The U.S. non-manufacturing sector continues to enjoy expansion in April for the 51st straight month, the ISM services PMI showed on Monday. The corresponding gauges rose to 55.2, compared to the March reading of 53.1 and overshooting expectations of 54.1. More specifically, the business index rose to 60.9 in April from 53.4, whereas the non-manufacturing employment index fell to 51.3 from 53.6. A reading above the 50.0 threshold indicated expansion in the industry, while below shows contraction. The ISM services PMI echoed the manufacturing PMI released last week, which inched higher to 54.9 in April, showing the 11th monthly increase in a row.
In contrast, a separate report from Markit showed that the U.S. sector growth slowed slightly in April and the pace of employment fell for a fourth straight month to the slowest in more than a year. Markit service sector PMI declined to 55.0 in April from 55.3 a month earlier, even though the figure was slightly above the flash reading of 54.2 published last month. Markit's final composite PMI, a weighed average of manufacturing and services indexes, fell to 55.6 from 55.7 seen in March. The employment component of the index was 51.7 compared to 52.2 in the previous month, and was the lowest since March 2013. The data contrasts with the last week's official jobs data.
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