US Census says manufacturing new order contracted 0.8% month-over-month in June 2011. Econintersect concurs and believes manufacturing could have fallen up to 2.4% – but that is a glass half empty view.
The other – more optimistic – view is that manufacturing is up solidly 12.5% (5.5% inflation adjusted) year-over-year.
Econintersect sees few recession warning signs in this data. But this means little for employment – manufacturing provides less than 10% of employment in the economy.
The health of manufacturing is gauged by the growth of unfilled orders. This month our analysis adjusted the order value to inflation – to see if the number of “widgets” under order was actually increasing.
The total value of unfilled orders declined month-over-month (blue line), and the year-over-year inflation adjusted change has been negative all of 2011. Likely this is demonstrating too much capacity combined with growth less than anticipated.
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