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Australia’s business activity made a strong start to the year, with its growth spurred by improvement within the manufacturing and services sectors in January.
The headline seasonally adjusted S&P Global Flash Australia PMI Composite Output Index jumped to 55.5 from 51 in December 2025, according to a Friday press release.
“January’s S&P Global Flash Australia PMI indicated that business activity growth accelerated in the opening month of the year, reflecting resilient economic conditions at the start of 2026,” Jingyi Pan, S&P Global Market Intelligence’s economics associate director, said.
Overseas demand boosted sales in both the manufacturing and services sectors, bringing up new work inflows that raised the number of new hires.
Official data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that the number of employed people rose by 65,000 in December 2025, exceeding market and analysts’ expectations. Youth workers, those aged between 15 and 24 years old, were a major factor in raising employment numbers.
Meanwhile, output price inflation softened due to easing service sector charge inflation, but there remains a risk of rising manufacturing input prices intensifying inflation in the coming months, Pan said.