ROME, May 6 (Reuters) – Cost pressures in Italy’s service sector hit their highest level in more than three years \u200cin April, driven by the conflict in the Middle East, \u200ca survey showed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The measure of input cost inflation in the Italian \u200bHCOB Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index accelerated to 65.5 from 64.6 in March, marking the highest reading since February 2023.<\/p>\n
However, the headline PMI, a broader gauge of services activity, moved unexpectedly towards stabilisation after a fall \u200cin March below the \u206050.0 threshold that separates growth from contraction.<\/p>\n
In April, it stood at 49.8, up from 48.8 the month \u2060before. A Reuters survey of 11 analysts had pointed to a reading of 47.6.<\/p>\n
The uncertainty caused by the Iran war continued to weigh \u200bon the \u200bservices sector, with a knock-on effect \u200bon demand as well as \u200can increase in cost pressures, said Eleanor Dennison, an economist at S&P Global.<\/p>\n
“April data pointed to the largest gap in the PMI price indices since the end of 2022 as, in fear of deterring already muted demand, firms were less able to pass cost \u200cburdens onto customers,” she said.<\/p>\n
“This squeeze \u200bon margins is likely to have an \u200badverse impact on labour \u200bmarket and investment outcomes if sustained.”<\/p>\n
The sister PMI survey \u200cfor Italy’s smaller manufacturing sector \u200balso showed input \u200bcost inflation accelerating to an almost four-year high last month.<\/p>\n
The composite PMI, combining manufacturing and services, rose in April to 50.5 \u200bfrom 49.2 the \u200cmonth before, when it had signalled economic contraction for the \u200bfirst time since January 2025.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Antonella Cinelli; Editing \u200bby Crispian Balmer and Joe Bavier)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROME, May 6 (Reuters) – Cost pressures in Italy’s service sector hit their highest level in more than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9751,5,9752,9753,9750],"class_list":{"0":"post-13197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-conflict-in-the-middle-east","9":"tag-italy","10":"tag-manufacturing-sector","11":"tag-reuters-survey","12":"tag-service-sector"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}