The latest information on manufacturing and the economy from the National Association of Manufactures and the Council of Industry
Members:
Here is theMonday Manufacturing Economy Report from NAM Chief Economist Chad Moutray for 6/11/2018. The Council of Industry, as member organization of the National Association of Manufacturers is happy to share this report with our members.
Here are some highlights from the report:
"Job openings in the manufacturing sector recently soared to the highest reading since January 2001, with 451,000 openings in April, up from 421,000 in March. Overall, the pace of manufacturing job openings has trended higher, consistent with the tight labor market seen in other data. While the generation of new jobs is nearly always welcome news, the gap between the number of manufacturing workers and available manufacturing jobs—often a result of the fact that there simply are not enough qualified applicants to fill them—is a serious problem for manufacturers. Indeed, manufacturers cited the inability to attract and retain talent as their top concern in the latest NAM survey. The strong employment numbers were not limited to manufacturing. Job openings for non-farm payroll businesses rose to a new all-time high, jumping to 6,698,000 in April.
Despite the strong employment data, labor productivity growth has been frustratingly slow since the end of the Great Recession, averaging just 0.1 percent per year from 2013 to 2017. The latest figures did not change that narrative. Manufacturing labor productivity fell 1.2 percent in the first quarter, revised lower after originally estimated to have risen 0.5 percent.
Meanwhile, new factory orders declined 0.8 percent in April, falling for the first time since January. The decrease in April stemmed largely from sharply reduced non-defense aircraft and parts orders, which fell 28.9 percent. Aircraft sales are highly volatile from month to month, however, with orders often bunched around key events. Excluding transportation equipment, new orders for manufactured goods increased 0.4 percent in April. Overall, new factory orders have trended much higher over the past year, soaring 7.4 percent since April 2017. Encouragingly, core capital goods—or non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft—rose 1.0 percent in April."
