UK Economy Shrinks as Services Sector Hit Hard by New Lockdown

A waiter poses for photographs as he waits for customers outside a restaurant after it reopened, in London on July 5, 2020. Peter Nicholls/Reuters

British business activity contracted in November as the UK’s huge services industry suffered from new COVID-19 restrictions, including the second lockdown in England.

An early “flash” reading of the IHS Markit/CIPS UK Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) (pdf), a gauge of private sector growth, showed it had tumbled to a five-month low of 47.4 in November from 52.1 in October, ending a four-month period of expansion.