Business activity in the region has continued to rise, with October seeing a surge in job creation.
The latest Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking West Midlands purchasing managers’ index (PMI) report highlighted further strong growth in the private sector economy at the start of the fourth quarter. Activity and new business both continued to rise at marked rates in October.
Higher workloads encouraged firms to step up recruitment, and as a result employment rose at the strongest rate since the start of the survey in 1997. Meanwhile, input and output prices both increased at sharper rates.
October saw business activity rise for the sixth successive month in the region, though the rate of growth remained below the UK average.
Lloyds’ Business Activity Index – which measures the combined output of the region’s service and manufacturing sectors – posted 58.3, just up on September’s reading of 58.2.
