As a normal person, your focus yesterday was probably on the collapse of the established geopolitical order rather than the purchasing managers’ index for the construction sector. But for many normal people the latter could be very important, because it signifies that one of the government’s most important manifesto promises is currently looking unachievable.
A purchasing managers’ index, or PMI, is a survey of businesses – how many orders they have, what they’re spending, how many people they’re hiring – and these are seen as significant economic indicators. The figures released by S&P Global for the UK construction industry yesterday look very poor indeed: construction output and new orders in the UK are declining at the fastest rate since May 2020. The analysts’ conclusion is that this is “led by considerable reductions in residential building” and “a lack of new work in the house building segment”.
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