Monthly Survey of Services
Volume of services down 1% in June with drops in all activities
August 09, 2019 09h00 AM | Last Updated: August 09, 2019 10h10 AM
The volume of services had the fourth and sharpest drop in the year, falling 1% in June, compared to May. It is the worst rate for the month since 2015, when it repeated the same result. The negative performance spread over all five activities, a fact which was last seen in May 2018 due to the truckers' strike.
The Monthly Survey of Services, released today by the IBGE, provides such information and more. Year-to-date, the sector grew by 0.6%, with a slight loss of dynamism compared to the second half of 2018. In the last 12 months, services slowed down from 1.1% in May to 0.7 % in June.
Services as a whole are 2.3% below the level of the end of last year, driven by the weaker behavior of transportation and communication and information activities, which fell 1% and 2.6% in June, respectively. Together they account for almost two thirds of the total volume of services.
With the exception of land transportation, all groups of those two activities fell during the month, which helps explain the negative result in June. The survey manager, Rodrigo Lobo, calls the attention to information technology services, which interrupted two highs in a row.
"This sector was on an upward trend, with multinational companies showing record revenues, but this month it had a sharp drop of 10.1%, after reaching the highest point of the series last month," he explains.
The other decreases came from other services (-2.3%), professional, administrative and complementary services (-0.1%) and services rendered to families (-0.2%).
Compared to June 2018, the service sector fell by 3.6%, with retraction in three of the five activities. Transportation exerted the biggest negative influence, with a drop of 10.9%, the most intense since October 2016, surpassing the May 2018 retreat.
"The truckers' strike caused an excess of demand in June last year, which gives an idea of how high the level was for transportation," explains Rodrigo.
