Monthly Survey of Services
Services advance 0.7% in April, still below pre-pandemic level
June 11, 2021 09h00 AM | Last Updated: June 11, 2021 04h38 PM
According to the Monthly Survey of Services - PMS, released today (11) by the IBGE, volume of services grew 0.7% between March and April. As a result, the sector recovered a small part of the drop registered in March (-3.1%), though it is still 1.5% below the level of February last year, in the pre-pandemic period.
Compared with April 2020, volume of services advanced 19.8%, the second consecutive positive rate and the most intense in the time series, started in January 2012. The sector grew 3.7% in the cumulative index in the year, interrupting three consecutive four-month periods of negative rates. Having changed the 12-month rate from -8.0% in March to -5.4% in April, it maintained the upward trend started in February.
The result of the sector in April was leveraged by only two out of five activities investigated: information and communication (2.5%), leveraged by the segments of information technology and telecommunications; and services rendered to families (9.3%), mainly led by restaurants.
“The result of services rendered to families should be relativized, since they dropped 28.0% in March when state and municipal decrees restricted the operation of some activities to control the dissemination of the virus. It made the consumption to significantly reduce in that month, causing a higher growth in April due to the low comparison basis,” analyzes Rodrigo Lobo, manager of the survey.
Among the other activities, professional, administrative and complementary services retreated 0.6%, the second consecutive negative rate in the March-April period (-2.0%). Other services also dropped 0.9%, eliminating a small part of the cumulative gain of 6.2% between February and March. After retreating 3.1% in March, the sector of transportation, support activities for transportation and mailing remained stable (0.0%).
In regional terms, 13 out of 27 Federation Units grew in volume of services in April against the previous month. Among the places with positive rates, the most important impact came from São Paulo (0.5%), followed by the Federal District (4.8%) and Paraná (1.5%). On the other hand, Minas Gerais (-1.0%) and Mato Grosso (-2.4%) recorded the major retractions in the period.
In the inter-annual comparison, all activities reported record rates
Having advanced 19.8%, the services sector registered the most intense rate over April 2020 in the time series, started in 2012. All the five activities surveyed registered record expansions. That result was influenced, to a great extent, by the low comparison basis, since the services sector had retreated 17.3% in April last year.
Transportation, support activities for transportation and mailing (30.7%) exerted the major positive contribution to the total volume of services, leveraged by the increase in the revenue of the enterprises of road transportation of cargo, port and terminal management, road transportation of passengers, air transportation, concessionaires of highways, national mail and airport operations.
“If, on the one hand, the segments of cargo transportation and logistics support maintain the good performance started in the middle of 2020, on the other hand, transportation of passengers now benefit from the low comparison basis, since that April 2020 was the first month of integral measures of social distancing, causing a sudden reduction in the mobility of the population in different transportation modals to avoid the fast spread of Covid-19,” adds Rodrigo Lobo.
The other positive contributions to the overall index came from information and communication services (12.8%), professional, administrative and complementary services (10.9%), services rendered to families (65.8%) and other services (16.8%).
More about the survey
The Monthly Survey of Services produces indicators to follow up the short-term behavior of the services sector in Brazil. The survey investigates the gross revenue from services in formal enterprises, employing 20 or more persons, in which the main activity is a non-financial service, excluding the areas of health and education. It produces results for Brazil and all the Federation Units. The results can be consulted on Sidra.
