If the blockbuster jobs report that blindsided markets on Friday wasn’t enough to convince you that the US economy isn’t on the brink of recession, perhaps a likewise robust read on services sector activity will do the trick.

Less than two hours after traders learned the world’s largest economy added more than half a million jobs in January, ISM services printed nearly five points ahead of consensus.

At 55.2, the headline stormed back into expansion territory and easily topped the most optimistic guess from more than five-dozen economists. Accounting for revisions, it was the largest monthly gain since June of 2020.

“Although responses varied by industry and company, the majority of panelists indicated that business is trending in a positive direction,” ISM’s Anthony Nieves said Friday, adding that although the employment gauge, at 50.0, indicated no change, at least “some companies still find it difficult to fill open positions,” even as others “are facilitating staff reductions.”

The final read on S&P Global’s services sector PMI for the US economy in January was virtually unchanged from the flash print. At 46.8, it painted a much less robust picture, even as it improved markedly from December.

“Business activity in the vast US services economy contracted in January as companies reported a further deterioration in new business inflows,” S&P Global’s Chris Williamson said. “Hiring has almost ground to halt as firms reassess their payroll needs in light of the weaker demand environment.”

Make no mistake: Markets will focus on the ISM report, not the S&P Global gauge. And some of the key underlying ISM indexes staged remarkable rebounds from the prior month. The New Orders gauge jumped all the way from 45.2 to 60.4, for example, while the business activity index rose almost seven points. Encouragingly, the prices paid gauge dropped to 67.8, still very elevated, but the lowest since January of 2021 nevertheless.

This scarcely needs repeating, but: The services sector is where the sticky inflation lives. Hot reads on services activity could suggest the animal spirits enlivened by surging stock prices and falling mortgage rates are manifesting in real time.

All in all, the last of this week’s deluge of crucial US macro data was unambiguously robust. Whether that’s good news, bad news or something in-between is left to the reader to decide and trade.