Weather helps lift services sector

The hotter-than-expected summer and resultant tourist boom led to the fastest monthly growth in services sector activity for six-and-a-half years in August, new figures show.

The latest edition of Investec Ireland’s monthly Services Purchasing Managers’ Index — published yesterday — shows a reading of 61.6 points for August. Any reading above the neutral 50-point mark denotes a sector in growth mode.

While evidently above that, August’s reading was also well up on the 57.6-point reading measured in July and marked the 13th successive month of growth for the sector, as well as the fastest single monthly increase since Feb 2007.