Manufacturing growing at fastest pace since ’04

[impik]

NEW YORK - The U.S. manufacturing sector expanded in March at its strongest pace in 5 1/2 years, a private trade group said Thursday, as industrial companies continue to lead the recovery from the recession.

The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, said its gauge of industrial companies rose to 59.6 in March from 56.5 in February. It is the eighth straight month of expansion and the fastest growth since July 2004, when the index was 59.9.

Economists polled by Thomson Reuters had expected the measure to read 57.




http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36131832/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/

[Swede]

1. Good news.

[NJmaverick]

2. K and R for good news

[Sky Masterson]

3. Being a manufacturer

I say :woohoo:

[Lost4words]

7. If I were you, I would avoid the rush and pick out your Ferrari before the backlog of orders.

nt

[Sky Masterson]

8. I'll be happy just to be able to pay myself

:)

[HughMoran]

17. Same here

Somehow we're scraping by for now - I hope we can survive.

[Atman]

4. DAMN THAT OBAMA!

I'm sure the news media will find a way to make this into a BAD thing for the President.

[AwakeAtLast]

5. Yeah, I sure wish he would do something

:sarcasm: <--- just in case ;)

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[impik]

9. Good news is always bad news here. No surprise today either

[Lost4words]

10. you will get your chance at it, of that i am sure

[Zynx]

11. 2004 was a better year than 2003 by virtually any measure and 2003 was better than 2002

by virtually any measure. I guess that is if you care about data.

[harry_pothead]

12. K&R IF AND ONLY IF this means more AMERICAN jobs.

[rufus dog]

13. this survey has been a solid leading economic indicator for 30 years

Great news.

[Uzybone]

14. Excellent news, hope we start to see the real world effect in jobs

[MellowDem]

15. The vast majority of the growth is in production...

not in manufacturing jobs. The technology of manufacturing is very efficient anymore, and while it is good news in general, it's not a sign of new jobs necessarily.

[Moosepoop]

16. The growth in production hasn't created new jobs -- yet.

But if the growth continues, it will. Technology has made manufacturing more efficient, true, but there hasn't been much advancement in technology in our factories during this recession. Jobs lost to the drop in production will, at some point, be necessarily restored when needed production rates increase enough to call for it.

[MellowDem]

18. That is true...

and anytime you are producing more of something, it has a ripple effect on all the raw resources or other products that are needed to produce it, and on the service sector that is used to sell it. I just don't think that that many manufacturing jobs will be created from this. Most likely it will create more jobs in other sectors than the manufacturing sector.

As it is, a lot of factories are producing below capacity, even now, so an increase in production would necessarily cause those factories to have to hire more, but for how long, who knows? And it doesn't take a lot of new hires to run a factory as it used to.