Mumbai, May 6 -- April saw Germany's service sector slip back into contraction after having grown in each of the previous four months, the latest HCOB PMI survey showed.
Service providers were meanwhile a lot less optimistic about the year-ahead outlook than the month before, amid reports from panellists of concerns towards tariffs and related uncertainty.
Employment defied the deteriorations in both current conditions and firms' expectations, however, rising at the quickest rate for nearly a year. Wages were a key factor behind an accelerated rise in input prices in the sector, but services firms were less aggressive with price increases due to competition for new work.
The headline HCOB Germany Services PMI Business Activity Index reco...