The lack of demand led to a less positive outlook among manufacturers, and optimism dipped to an 11-month low, leading to cut backs in employment, purchasing and inventories, it noted.
The final quarter of the year saw global manufacturing on a weak footing as output contracted for the fifth consecutive month in October, reflecting a further deterioration in new orders, according to S&P Global.
The lack of demand led to optimism dipping to an 11-month low among manufacturers, leading to cut backs in employment, purchasing and inventories.
The J.P. Morgan global manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to a three-month low of 48.8 in October, down from 49.2 in September and below the neutral 50 mark for the fourteenth consecutive month.
This is the longest sequence of deterioration since the downturn registered between December 2000 to February 2002.
Europe remained the principal drag on global factory output in October, harbouring the eight fastest contracting manufacturing nations—Germany, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Czechia, Austria, the United Kingdom and Italy.
There was also a slight dip in production volumes, on an average, in Asia, as strong growth in India and modest expansions in Indonesia and Thailand were more than offset by contractions in China, Japan and some other nations.
The United States eked out a second consecutive mild increase in output volumes, S&P Global said in a release.
The current downturn led to further caution among manufacturers, with October seeing cut backs in staffing, purchasing and inventory holdings. Employment fell for the second month running and to the greatest extent since August 2020.
Job losses were registered in 21 out of the 30 nations for which data were available. These includied China, the United States, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom. All three of the product categories covered—consumer, intermediate and investment goods—registered lower employment.
Input cost inflation accelerated in October, taking the rate of increase to a seven-month high. Part of the rise in purchase prices was passed on to clients, as highlighted by a further increase in average output charges.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)