New Orders Down In NI Businesses

An economic report of private sector companies in Northern Ireland has found that new orders are falling and business activity is down.

The Purchasing Managers’ Index for May shows a decrease across the board, and jobs have been cut for the sixth month in a row.

The report was produced by Markit Economics for Ulster Bank, taking in information from the manufacturing, service, construction and retail sectors.

Jobs were lost at the sharpest rate in the construction sector and many companies across the board reported cutting staffing levels to reduce costs.

About 34% of respondents said their new orders had reduced since a month before, and companies in every sector except retail said they had been forced to reduce their output prices in the last month.

Some said it was in response to direct pressure from clients.

After adjusting for seasonal factors, May saw the sharpest month-on-month drop in prices since October 2008.

Northern Ireland's private sector is following the same trends as the rest of the UK, but results were consistently worse than in the UK.

Richard Ramsey, Ulster Bank’s chief economist, told the BBC: "There is no real single weakness. It is weakness across all sectors: manufacturing, retail, construction and services. It is both domestically generated from the property downturn and also from the public expenditure cuts particularly in construction. Also, it is a result of external developments and trade - developments in the euro zone etc feeding through to Northern Ireland's exporters."

(NE/GK)