{"id":5116,"date":"2018-12-05T10:08:30","date_gmt":"2018-12-05T10:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/uk-economic-growth-stalls-as-service-sector-slides\/"},"modified":"2018-12-05T10:08:30","modified_gmt":"2018-12-05T10:08:30","slug":"uk-economic-growth-stalls-as-service-sector-slides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/uk-economic-growth-stalls-as-service-sector-slides\/","title":{"rendered":"UK economic growth &#8216;stalls&#8217; as service sector slides"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"Person pouring tea\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/4E8B\/production\/_97670102_hotelgetty.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Growth in the UK&#8217;s key services sector has hit its lowest level since July 2016, prompting fears of stagnation.<\/p>\n<p>The purchasing managers&#8217; index (PMI) from IHS Markit\/CIPS sank to 50.4 in November, down from 52.2 in October. A figure above 50 indicates expansion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The survey results suggest that the pace of economic growth has stalled,&#8221; said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit.<\/p>\n<p>The services sector accounts for about 80% of the UK economy.<\/p>\n<p>The last time the index was this low came in the immediate aftermath of the UK&#8217;s referendum vote to leave the European Union.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A contraction of service sector business activity in November was only avoided by firms working through back-orders to an extent not exceeded since 2009,&#8221; said Mr Williamson. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As such, unless demand revives, a slide into economic decline at the turn of the year is a distinct possibility.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Williamson added that clarity in relation to Brexit arrangements was &#8220;urgently needed to help ensure the current stalling of growth does not translate into a downturn&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the decline was &#8220;the clearest indication yet that Brexit uncertainty is draining momentum from the economy&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>He said predictions by the Bank of England&#8217;s Monetary Policy Committee of 0.3% economic growth for the October-to-December period now looked &#8220;too upbeat&#8221;, adding: &#8220;While a small fall in GDP isn&#8217;t likely, no one should rule it out at this stage either.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ruth Gregory, senior UK economist at Capital Economics, described the figure as &#8220;thoroughly disappointing&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>She added: &#8220;Unless there is a particularly strong bounce back in December, GDP growth of 1.3% seems likely over 2018 as a whole, the weakest since the financial crisis.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-46452727\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Getty Images Growth in the UK&#8217;s key services sector has hit its lowest level since July 2016, prompting fears of stagnation. The purchasing managers&#8217; index (PMI) from IHS Markit\/CIPS sank to 50.4 in November, down from 52.2 in October. A figure above 50 indicates expansion. &#8220;The survey results suggest that the pace of &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}