Factory output continued to weaken in many parts of the world during October, according to surveys of purchasing managers, and there were signs the sector’s long slowdown is taking a rising toll on jobs.
Over the past 18 months, factories have been hit by cooling demand for their exports and slowing investment spending as businesses opt to wait out a lengthening period of unusually high uncertainty about future trade relations between the world’s leading economies.
Surveys of purchasing managers released Friday indicated the sector continued to cool in October, although there were some signs that the pace of contraction has started to level off.
Weaker global growth is weighing on the U.S. economy, and was cited by U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell as a key factor behind Wednesday’s decision to cut the central bank’s key interest rate for the third time this year. A survey of U.S. purchasing managers to be released later Friday is expected to record a decline in activity during October, albeit at a slower pace than in the previous month.
There were mixed signals from China, the world’s second-largest economy, where a measure of activity compiled by data firm IHS Markit pointed to an acceleration in growth, a day after an official measure pointed to a steeper decline in activity.
But even the more upbeat assessment pointed to jobs cuts, a path manufacturers also decided to take in South Korea, Asia’s fourth-largest economy and a victim of trade conflicts.
Other surveys by IHS Markit signaled the end of a near four-year expansion of manufacturing activity in Vietnam, while Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan and Malaysia each reported declines in activity. India’s manufacturing sector continued to grow, but at the weakest pace in two years.
“Weakening demand had a domino effect in the manufacturing industry, knocking down rates of increase in production, employment and business sentiment,” said Pollyanna de Lima, an economist at IHS Markit.
Newsletter Sign-up
October surveys for much of the eurozone won’t be released until Monday, but there were indications of continued weakness in Europe. Activity again declined sharply in the Czech Republic, a country that has close industrial ties to Germany, the continent’s manufacturing powerhouse. In the Netherlands, which has so far escaped the worst of the slowdown, activity increased at the slowest pace since mid-2013.
And in the U.K., activity declined again in October, although less sharply than in the previous month. Faced with continued uncertainty about when and in what way the country will leave the European Union, factories cut their payrolls for the seventh straight month.
“As the manufacturing sector remains in the twilight zone, wondering whether to stock or destock, hire new staff, look for new business or batten the hatches once again, it looks like a scary end to the year,” said Duncan Brock, group director at the U.K.’s Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply, a professional association for purchasing managers.
There are signs elsewhere that the manufacturing slowdown is beginning to take its toll on other jobs markets whose strength has been one of the key supports to global growth. Japan’s unemployment rate rose in September, while the number of people without work rose in the eurozone, even as the jobless rate was unchanged.
Write to Paul Hannon at paul.hannon@wsj.com
Copyright ©2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
"jobs" - Google News
November 01, 2019 at 07:25PM
https://ift.tt/2oAA7Ny
Global Factory Slowdown Takes Toll On Jobs - The Wall Street Journal
"jobs" - Google News
https://ift.tt/36m99ub
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
No comments:
Post a Comment