Monthy Survey of Services
Services grow by 0.5% in August and reach highest level since 2015
October 14, 2021 09h00 AM | Last Updated: October 14, 2021 05h22 PM
Volume of services increased by 0.5% from July to August, fifth positive rate in a row, with a cumulative increase of 6.5% in the period. As a result, the sector is 4.6% above the pre-pandemic level and also hit its peak since November 2015. Despite such an increase, the sector is still 7.1% below the series record, recorded in November 2014. These are data from the Monthly Survey of Services - PMS, released today (14) by the IBGE.
Against August 2020, volume of services advanced 16.7%, sixth consecutive positive rate in a row. In the cumulative index in the year, the sector grew 11.5% against the same period a year ago. In 12 months, having changed from 2.9% in July to 5.1% in August, the index hasbeen on an upward trend since February this year (-8.6%) and recorded the highest rate in the time series that started in December 2012.
“The services sector had sustained recovery in August, mainly in terms of online services, but also of face-to-face ones, with the advance of vaccination and the increase of people’s movement. Since June last year, the sector has had a series of 14 positive increases and only one negative increase, registered in March, when some activities considered non-essential were interrupted as determined by local governments due to the second wave of Covid-19,” the survey manager, Rodrigo Lobo, explains.
The advance of services in August was based on four of the five activities, with a highlight to information and communication services (1.2%) and transportation (1.1%), after negative results in July.
“The former was influenced by software development and licensing, besides inetgrated editing and book printing. The latter, by air transportation of passengers and airport operation, as there was a bigger flow of passengers in movement and increasing the revenue of airfares and of airport concessionaires. I also highlight cargo logistics,” Mr. Lobo highlights.
Services rendered to families advanced 4.1% in August, fifth positive rate since April, when there was cumulative increase of 50.5%. This increase resultd, once more, from the segment of lodging and feeding, such as hotels and restaurants. Despite the advance in August, services rendered to families are at 17.4%, below the level of February 2020.
With the lowest impact on the global index, other services (1.5%) made up fot the decrease in the previous month (-0.2%). “This activity had an impact of financial, auxiliary services and, to a lower extent, post-harvesting services related to agriculture, such as hiring of workforce or planting of a product of some agricultural product and renting of machinery. Once harvesting takes place, there is a group of services used in this agricultural process,” Mr. Lobo explains.
Professional, administrative and complementary services are below pre-pandemic levels once more
Professional, administrative and complementary services fell by 0.4% in August, after a sequence of three positive rates and a cumulative increase of 4.1%. With this result, the sector is, once more, 0.2% below the pre-pandemic figure, similarly to services rendered to families.
“This decrease of 0.4% shows the pace of increase has leveled off. The negative contribution came from legal activities, technical activities related to engineering and architecture and solutions in electronic payment. As a result, we now there are two sectors operating below the figure in February 2020: professional, administrative and complementary services and services renderd to families,” says the manager of PMS.
In August, 16 out of 27 Federation Units grew in terms of volume of services against the previous month. Among the places with positive rates, the most important impacts came from São Paulo (0.5%), Rio Grande do Sul (4.2%), Paraná (1.0%) and Bahia (1.7%). Mato Grosso (-3.6%), Federal District (-2.0%) and Rio de Janeiro (-0.4%) recorded the main decreases in the period.
Index of tourism activities has cumulative increase of 49.1%
From July, the index of tourism activities increased by 4.6%. It is the fourth consecutive positive rate, with a cumulative increase of 49.1%. It is worth mentioning that the tourism indicator is still 20.8% below the level of February last year.
Eight of the 12 Federation Units surveyed in this indicator recorded positive rates, with a highlight to São Paulo (4.9%), Minas Gerais (4.7%), Goiás (8.8%) and Paraná (5.4%). In terms of negative results, Rio de Janeiro (-1.1%) recorded the most significant negative result in the month.
More about PMS
PMS The Monthly Survey of Services produces indicators to monitor the short-term behavior of the services sector in Brazil. The survey investigates the gross revenue from services in formal enterprises that employ 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. Results are available at Sidra.
