Australia Manufacturing PMI Ticks Higher In July - S&P Global

(RTTNews) - The manufacturing sector in Australia continued to expand in July, and at a slightly faster pace, the latest survey from S&P Global revealed on Friday with a manufacturing PMI score of 51.7.

That's up from 51.5 and it moves further above the boom-or-bust line of 50 that separates expansion from contraction.

Greater workloads led to a rise in backlogged orders for the first time in five months, albeit one that was only slight in nature. This pressure on capacity encouraged greater hiring activity across the economy, with job creation at its strongest since April and back above trend. Jobs were added across both the services and manufacturing sectors.

The survey also showed that the services PMI jumped to 53.0 from 50.5 in June and the Composite PMI improved to 52.6 from 50.4.

On the price front, there was a noticeable slowdown with respect to the rate of cost inflation in July. Retreating further from April's recent peak, cost pressures were their softest since February, but still substantial overall. Greater outlays on fuel, oil, raw materials and wages were widely reported in the qualitative part of the survey.

While manufacturers raised their selling prices at a softer rate compared to June, strength in demand for services encouraged service providers to be more aggressive in their price setting. The composite rate of charge inflation rose since June but was still below that seen in April and May.