US manufacturing indices and unemployment: bittersweet data that should advise the Fed to proceed
The Philly Fed Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey showed that activity in the region continued to decline in June 2023. The Philly Fed Manufacturing measures economic activity in the area around Philadelphia, i.e. Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware . It is an important industrial area for the USA, once home to the country's iron and steel industry.
Survey indicators on general activity and new orders remained negative. at the same time the shipping index rose and turned positive. This means that orders are still declining, but some more goods have been shipped.
The current general activity decreased from a reading of -10.4 last month to -13.7 this month, its tenth consecutive negative reading. A third of companies reported decreases, surpassing the 20% who reported increases…
However, as the graph above shows, there is hope: the index for future general activity jumped from a reading of -10.3 in May to 12.7 in June, the index's first positive reading in four months and the highest reading since March 2022
New orders contracted for the 14th straight month, but expectations for future new orders exploded to the upside…
But these are expectations that must be confirmed, and it is not said that they are.
U.S. unemployment data also came out today, and again the data is bittersweet: the number of people filing for unemployment for the first time fell by 9,000 to 288,000, but rose by 33,000 to 1,754. .000 the total number of benefit applicants. Therefore the number of new unemployed decreases, but the total ones increase.
These data should influence the FED's decisions on rates, advising not to force too much on the path of interest rate growth.
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The article US manufacturing indices and unemployment: bittersweet data that should advise the FED to proceed comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/indici-manifatturieri-e-disoccupazione-usa-dati-agrodolci-che-dovrebbero-consigliare-prodenza-alla-fed/ on Thu, 20 Jul 2023 16:13:07 +0000.