ISM Service Sector Reading Rises to 55.5%
NEW YORK (
) -- Economic activity in the non-manufacturing sector rose in November, according to the latest report from the Institute for Supply Management.
The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index registered at 55% in November, higher than the 54.3% registered in October. A reading over 50 indicates growth.
Analysts were expecting the index to be relatively unchanged at 54.5%, according to consensus estimates from
Briefing.com
.
New orders, employment, export and import orders grew at a faster pace during the month, while the backlog of orders slowed. The index of new orders ticked higher to 57.7% from 56.7% a month earlier.
Another encouraging trend in the report was the improvement in employment outlook. The Employment Index increased 1.8 percentage points. Some respondents of the survey said they were filling a backlog of positions, while others said the hiring freeze in their firms had been lifted, the report said.
The Census Bureau also released its factory orders report on Friday. New orders for manufactured goods fell 0.9% after rising 0.3% in October. Still it was a milder decline than the 1.3% drop analysts were expecting.
Unfilled orders, up nine of the last ten months, rose 0.6%. The unfilled orders-shipments ratio rose to 5.76. The inventories-to-shipments ratio was 1.28, up from 1.27 in September.
Earlier this morning, the Labor Department said
the economy added 39,000 jobs in November, significantly lower than the 140,000 analysts were expecting.
Analysts say investors should expect economic reports to remain mixed in the months ahead, as the path to recovery is likely to be choppy.
-- Written by Shanthi Bharatwaj in New York
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