Latest data released by Markit/CIPS - 3 April 2020

  • Composite PMI 36.0 vs 37.1 prelim

The preliminary report can be found here. The revision lower reflects the sharpest fall in activity in the survey's history as business shutdowns and drop in demand weigh on UK economic conditions last month amid the virus outbreak.

Markit notes that:

"A record slump in UK service sector activity reported in March adds to the increasingly bleak economic statistics seen recently across the developed world. Emergency public health measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic continue to mothball business operations, force aggressive cutbacks on non-essential expenses and trigger distress for household finances.

"The severe impact on service sector activity in March was by no means limited to consumer-facing businesses or those directly hit by international travel restrictions. Technology services were the only area to signal a rise in business activity, but even this pocket of growth looks fragile as new workloads dropped more quickly in this category than at any time since 2011.

"There were numerous reports from survey respondents that placing staff on furlough had helped to mitigate more widespread job losses in March. However, employment levels across the service sector still dropped at the fastest pace for more than a decade, reflecting some forced redundancies and the non-replacement of departing staff amid widespread hiring freezes

"With the UK economy now almost certain to experience a deep contraction in the second quarter of the year, perhaps the most important aspect of the Services PMI to watch for hopeful signs will be any recovery in the business expectations sub-index from the record low seen in March."