Puerto Rico economic activity index -1.1% YOY in Aug.
The GDB-EAI registered a 1.1 percent year-over-year reduction in August, after showing a 0.7 percent YOY decrease in July 2014.
Puerto Rico’s economic activity index reflected yet another drop in August, when results were down 1.1 percent when compared to the same month last year, according to data released late Friday by the Government Development Bank.
Last month’s results follow a 0.7 percent reduction reported in July 2014.
The report showed that several of the key components that make up the index reflected downturns in August: Cement sales totaled 1.07 million bags, a year-over-year decrease of 22.4 percent; Electric power generation totaled 1,869.5 million kWh, or a year-over-year decrease of 4.1 percent; and gasoline consumption was 75.0 million gallons, a 0.3 percent decrease from August 2013, preliminary calculations showed.
Meanwhile, total non-farm payroll employment averaged 911,600, an annual increase of 0.4 percent, the report noted.
Private employment grew for the sixth consecutive month, “demonstrating that the private sector is leading the recovery,” the GDB said, adding that construction employment registered its fifth consecutive month of growth, up 6.6 percent in August.
“Employment in the public sector has been decreasing since early 2013. Such decrease in public sector employment was primarily driven by policy decision to reduce the fiscal deficit,” the GDB-EAI report noted.
The GDB publishes the EAI on a monthly basis along with a qualitative economic comment to provide an understanding of the trends and current state of the local economy.
The EAI index is developed following a methodology similar to that used by The Conference Board in their coincident index, and has a high correlation to Puerto Rico’s real Gross National Product.
While it may be old news, people should be reminded of the infantile attempts to manipulate public opinion and minimize coverage of bad news. GDB’s alert that this piece of bad news had been posted arrived, not simply “late Friday”, but at 11:13pm!!!
Most economic data issued by the Federal government is posted on days scheduled months in advance and always at 8:30am. Data users in PR should demand the same.
All that’s happening economically today in PR rests entirely on previous
administrations and politicians. It took YEARS to get here and many
should be held accountable for outright mismanagement.