New Zealand’s manufacturing sector experienced a drop in expansion during October, according to the latest BNZ – BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI).
The seasonally adjusted PMI for October was 51.7 (a PMI reading above 50.0 indicates that manufacturing is generally expanding; below 50.0 that it is declining). This was down 2.3 points from September.
BusinessNZ’s executive director for manufacturing Catherine Beard said that the sector remains in a state of flux, although still managing to keep in positive territory.
“Despite a relatively strong showing with the key indices of production and new orders in September, October saw both slide to lower levels of expansion. On a brighter note, employment (52.6) reached its highest level since April 2018”.
BNZ Senior Economist, Craig Ebert said that “October’s PMI serves as a gentle reminder of not getting too carried away with the sense of recovery, even if the worst of COVID’s impacts can be assumed to be behind us”.
