Eurozone PMI casts doubts on 4Q bounce back – ING

Bert Colijn, Senior Economist at ING, notes that the Eurozone’s composite PMI dropped to an almost four-year low in November, from 53.1 to 52.4.

Key Quotes

“Growth in new orders remains slow, indicating that the cruising speed of the eurozone economy has weakened. This was mainly because of weakening export orders, which has happened across both industry and services.”

“The service sector is performing better than industry, underpinned by recent job growth.”

“A worrying factor, therefore, is that businesses are indicating that employment growth is slowing.”

“There are hopes for a bounce back in 4Q but the German PMI also dropped to an almost four-year low in November, indicating that a swift recovery may not be in the making and that a recovery could be more spread out. We, therefore, expect GDP growth to come in at just 1.9% for this year.”