Services now driving the recovery

Service producers are taking over from manufacturing as the driver of the almost 3-year-old expansion of the U.S. economy, Bloomberg reported. The end of the recession in June 2009 triggered the biggest surge in production in a decade. That is now giving way to increasing sales at restaurants, transportation companies and temporary-help agencies and other service providers, leading to gains in employment that have bolstered the world’s largest economy. The Institute for Supply Management’s services index, which includes mining and construction companies and tracks about 88 percent of the economy, has exceeded its factory gauge in seven of the last eight months, opening the biggest advantage in three years in February, Bloomberg said.