Dr. Cyrus de la Rubia, Chief Economist at the Hamburg Commercial Bank, stated that “the manufacturing sector in the Eurozone (44.2) had a difficult November, marked by a further decline in output and a sixth consecutive monthly decline in employment. While most of the sub-indexes in the survey recovered slightly from October, the reported improvement was modest and lacked the momentum to reflect a true uptrend.”
More specifically, the French manufacturing sector (42.9) recorded its strongest decline since May 2020 in November. According to Norman Liebke, economist at the Hamburg Commercial Bank, “The French manufacturing industry again suffered from weak demand in November. High interest rates and continued destocking operations led to a sharp decline in the volume of new orders, a trend that is likely to continue over the coming months. Our HCOB immediate forecast model suggests a 0.7% contraction in manufacturing in the fourth quarter.”
For Germany (42.6), the slowdown in the manufacturing sector showed further signs of easing over the period, with companies reporting the slowest declines in production and new orders in the past six months.
Spain (46.3) and Italy (44.4) also remained mired in contraction territory in November, with output, new orders and purchasing activity all down since October.
Across the Channel, while output declined for the ninth consecutive month, in November the UK manufacturing sector (47.2) seems to have turned a corner, with output decline slowing down.
(You can find the November index on www.pap-argus.com, in the Index section)
Published on 07/12/2023