Manufacturing Tech Orders Improve in June, Still Lag From Year-Earlier Levels

Datetime： 2016/3/28 15:16:35  Hits： 500

   Manufacturing technology orders improved on a monthly basis in June but lagged year-earlier levels, the Association for Manufacturing Technology said in a monthly report.

Such orders totaled $323.74 million. That’s 17.5% better from May’s adjusted $275.47 million, AMT (McLean, VA) said in a statement. However, it didn’t match the $361.71 million for June 2015.

“Manufacturing is growing, it’s just not growing fast enough,” Pat McGibbon, an AMT vice president, said in a video on the group’s website.

Manufacturing technology orders totaled $1.83 billion in the year’s first half. That’s down 15.8% from $2.18 billion for the same period in 2015.

The figures include orders of machine tools and related equipment. The numbers are based on data reported by companies participating in AMT’s Manufacturing Technology Orders program.

“There are many mixed indicators in manufacturing right now,” Douglas K. Woods, AMT’s president, said in a statement. “There has not been enough expansion activity to truly impact capital investment in new equipment.”

Near the Bottom

“We’re getting close to the bottom of this downturn in the manufacturing technology orders market,” McGibbon said on the group’s video. “But the signals are mixed. We’re not sure how long we’re going to be at the bottom.”

Other manufacturing economic indicators have been up and down.

Manufacturing employment surged by 9000 jobs in June primarily because of transportation equipment, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said last week. However, the total number of manufacturing jobs in June,12.305 million, didn’t match the year-earlier figure of 12.336 million.

The Institute for Supply Management’s PMI, which tracks economic activity in manufacturing, is barely averaging in positive territory for the 12 months ending in June. Still, the PMI’s best levels during that time were in May and June.

AMT still expects “we’re going to level off into a plateau here towards the end of 2016” with growth occurring in 2017, McGibbon said.