New Zealand’s services sector experienced further contraction during July, according to the BNZ – BusinessNZ Performance of Services Index (PSI). The PSI for July was 47.8 (A PSI reading above 50.0 indicates that the service sector is generally expanding; below 50.0 that it is declining). This was down 1.8 points from June, and the lowest level of activity for the sector since January 2022. It was also well below the long-term average of 53.5 for the survey. BusinessNZ chief executive Kirk Hope said that there were a few key concerns with the July result. While not all of the five main sub index measures were in ... (full story)