The steady fall in the critical confidence balances this year, for both manufacturing and services, is extremely worrying and requires an urgent policy response.

The alarming manufacturing figures, the decline in confidence balances across all sectors, and the fall in all the export balances are the most disturbing features of the Q3 results.

The manufacturing sector's position worsened sharply and across the board. The service sector domestic balances remain weak, and there was only modest improvement following the sharp losses seen earlier in the year.

Prospects for services are mediocre and the sector will struggle to regain dynamism.

Manufacturing has persistently failed to sustain recovery and, in spite of the modest fourth-quarter improvement, faces acute threats.

One of these days, we're going to see an increase in non-farm payrolls for the manufacturing sector.