Sales in the services sector fall again in June
According to the FSO, Swiss service sector companies once again reported lower revenue in June than in the same month of the previous year. This was primarily due to wholesale trade with foreign countries. The «Information and Communication» sector saw positive developments.
The negative trend since the beginning of the year has thus recently become more pronounced. In May, the decline was 7.0 percent and in April it was 8.0 percent. While domestic sales by service providers rose by 1.3 percent in June, they slumped by 27.2 percent abroad.
The decline was largely due to the development in wholesale, writes the Federal Statistical Office FSO. In the "Trade" sector, sales fell sharply by 17.5 percent, with the wholesale sector slumping by more than 30 percent. However, while the decline was moderate in the domestic market, it was very significant in trade with foreign countries. As in the previous month, the massive contraction in commodity trading (-43%) was particularly significant.
Hospitality industry continues to grow
Looking at the domestic and foreign markets as a whole, the "Transport and storage" sector also lost 3.2 percent in sales. In contrast, sales in the "Hotels & Restaurants" sector (+8.7%) increased as in the previous month. There were also positive developments in the sectors "Information and communication" (+6.8%) or "Real estate and housing" (+3.5%).
The sector "Provision of other economic services" (+1.4%) also increased again, although the sub-sector "Travel agencies, tour operators and provision of other reservation services" (+1.6%) lost considerable momentum compared with the previous months. In May, there was still a plus of over 40 percent there.
The service turnover statistics (DLU) of the FSO are monthly economic statistics that describe the development of turnover in the service sector. It has only been published for a few months. (SDA)
