New Zealand BusinessNZ Manufacturing PMI dropped sharply to 50.7 in August, down from 59.0. Looking at some details, productions dropped form 61.8 to 51.1. Employment improved from 46.9 to 49.0. New orders tumbled from 67.5 to 54.0.
BusinessNZ’s executive director for manufacturing Catherine Beard said, “After two months of playing catch-up, the level 3 lockdown placed on New Zealand’s largest population and economic region meant the sector would experience another hit. While results in other parts of the country led to the national result keeping its head above water, the latest results show how fragile and short the recovery can be.”
BNZ Senior Economist, Doug Steel said that “an outcome above the 50 breakeven mark – indicating a modicum of growth occurred in the month – is arguably a commendable result given more than a third of the country moved into alert level 3 for more than half of the month.”
