For IBGE, inflation does not impact both services and trade

In a scenario of advances in the immunization of the population against Covid-19 and the increase in the mobility of people between Brazilian cities, middle and upper class families continue to prioritize the consumption of services to the detriment of the purchase of goods in commerce, especially in the latter six months, said Rodrigo Lobo, manager of the Monthly Survey of Services at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

You services provided to families had an expansion of 1.3% in September compared to August, the sixth consecutive month of advances, a period in which they accumulated growth of 52.5%.

“This movement happens more among middle and high income families. The poorest families allocate more income for the consumption of essential items”, stressed Lobo.

Despite the improvement in recent months, services provided to families still operate at a level 16.2% lower than in February 2020, in the pre-pandemic period.

“In the services provided to families, there is still an important idleness”, recalled Lobo. “The recovery process has been taking place in these face-to-face services in a more gradual, gradual way, still operating below the level of February 2020. The recovery of the service sector has been supported by services provided to companies, where the aspect of inflation it doesn’t have that much relevance. We see an increase in revenue where prices have no influence”, he guaranteed.

O volume of services provided in the country shrank 0.6% in September compared to August, with advances only in services provided to families. There were decreases in the other four activities surveyed: transport (-1.9%), other services (-4.7%), information and communication (-0.9%) and professional, administrative and complementary services (-1.1% ).

For now, there is still no noticeable impact of the inflation on the performance of the provision of services in the country, with the exception of passenger air transport, which suffered from the increase in air tickets in September, stated Lobo.

“The inflation pressure that we observe on consumers, it is not reflected in a more incisive way on the services investigated here”, explained Lobo. “You can’t confuse the price effect on household income, which is obvious, it’s a given, with the price effect on the services provided.

I’m not saying that price escalation has no impact on household income, it has no impact on service research as a whole.

Services inflation is more moderate. The price effect on the Monthly Survey of Services occurs in a way that does not reflect as much on the volume (of services provided) as it does on the business“, he completed.

The IBGE researcher recalls that, although the services sector has been showing recovery since June of last year, the last few months have brought about a loss of strength in the rate of growth.

According to him, some segments show “tiredness” in the recovery process, but the high basis of comparison also influences this loss of strength in the services.

For Lobo, it is natural that vaccination and the reopening of establishments make people more confident in the consumption of face-to-face services.

However, the still high unemployment, the difficulty in advancing income and inflation may limit the future growth of services provided to families, warned the researcher.

“(Families) They can find scenarios in which there is neither consumption of goods nor services. People may have to organize the budget to spend on priority items. The consumption of services is less of a priority than the consumption of essential goods”, he recalled.