Monthly Survey of Services
Services setctor falls once again and records -1% in February
April 08, 2020 09h00 AM | Last Updated: April 08, 2020 09h45 AM
The volume of services fell 1.0% in February, in comparison with January, reaching the worst result in the sector since July 2018 (-3.1%), according to the Monthly Survey of Services (PMS), released today (8) by the IBGE. After growing 0.4% in January, the sector fell again, dropping 11.1% below the highest point in the series occurred in November 2014.
"Unlike what was seen at the end of 2019, a sign of recovery, what we see is a great predominance of negative rates in the last few months", comments survey manager Rodrigo Lobo, adding that this is the third negative result of the sector in four months.
Three of the five activities followed this downward trend. Highlight to professional, administrative and complementary services (-0.9%), the third negative rate for this segment, and information and communication services (-0.5%). Services rendered to families also had a negative change (-0.1%), but the impact was smaller on the general index.
The positive results came from Transportation, support services to transportation and mailing (0.4%), which registered the second positive rate in a row, driven by cargo transportation, both by road and by rail. Another sector that advanced was that of Other services (0.2%), which had five positive rates and stability in the last six months. “It is a sector that has shown great dynamism, in general driven by the financial and auxiliary services; but this month, what ended up leveraging it was the collection of common garbage”, claims Lobo.
Compared to the same month a year ago, the performance was positive
In comparison with February 2019, the total volume of services increased by 0.7%, reaching the sixth consecutive positive rate, despite the fact that the magnitude of the growth has been less intense than what has been observed in recent months. Three sectors followed this positive performance, especially Other services (9.3%).
“This segment was once again driven by financial and auxiliary services, such as securities brokers. After registering an increase of 11.5% in December and 9.7% in January, it had another good performance in February and accumulated 11 positive rates in a month-to-month comparison with the same period of the previous year”, points out Mr. Lobo.
However, only Transportation (1.8%) and Services rendered to families (4.1%), both registering the second consecutive positive rate, had advances in relation to the performance observed in January (1.0% and 0.2 %, respectively). The first was driven by Port and Terminal Management, Maritime Support Navigation, Highway Concessionaires and Air Passenger Transportation. The second, leveraged by Hotels and Restaurants, had its most intense positive rate since June 2019 (5.7%).
Among the negative results, professional, administrative and complementary services stood out (-3.4%), influenced by support activities to companies, such as electronic payment solutions, cleaning, technical activities related to Architecture and Engineering, in addition to surveillance and private security. The second negative impact in this comparison came from Information and Communication Services (-0.4%), which retracted after seven consecutive positive rates, pressured by consulting services and information technology, programmers and activities related to pay TV and telecommunications.
And, in the cumulative result for the year, the services sector increased 1.2% in relation to the first two months last year. In this two-month analysis, the services sector has the sixth positive rate, but there is a loss of pace in relation to September/October, when there was growth of 2.2%, and November/December, when it was up 1.7%.
Tourism activities also decreased compared to January
Tourism activities also decreased (-0.3%) from January to February. With two consecutive months of decrease, the sector accumulated a loss of 0.7%, eliminating part of the advance achieved in December 2019 (1.8%). Regionally, only five of the twelve Federation Units followed this downturn.
But in relation to February 2019, the sector expanded by 6.7% - the sixth positive rate in a row when comparing the same periods of the previous year. The good performance was mainly driven by the increase in revenue from hotels, car rental companies, airlines and restaurants. In regional terms, nine of the twelve Federation Units where the indicator is investigated showed an increase, especially Rio de Janeiro (19.1%) and Santa Catarina (13.0%).
