Poland's manufacturing PMI dropped to 47 points in September, its worst reading since the height of the crisis in Poland – July 2009 – as the country's economy continues to show signs of a sharp slowdown.

The fall to crisis-period lows is “a negative surprise even compared to already negative expectations,” said Agata Urbańska, an economist for Central & Eastern Europe at HSBC, in an e-mailed statement.

The PMI measures the performance of the manufacturing sector. HSBC and Markit, the companies that compile the survey, found that output, new orders and backlogs all declined at faster rates than in August, while employment in the sector fell for the first time since March.

Output has fallen every month since May. In September, new orders dropped sharply, the report found, prompting manufacturers to work through their backlogs rather than produce more.

“This reading follows below-expectation industrial production growth in August and feeds expectations for this growth rate turning negative in September as forecast by the economy ministry,” said Ms Urbańska.

“[T]he leading indicators domestically and abroad, among them PMI, still give no indication of the economic slowdown bottoming out in the neat future,” she added.