U.S. industrial production improved in May—but manufacturers showed weakness despite eking out a slight gain.
U.S. industrial production improved in May, but manufacturers showed weakness despite eking out a slight gain.
Manufacturing output increased just 0.2% last month, not enough to overcome declines in prior months. Factory production is down 1.5% since the end of 2018, an indication of the potential damage from the import taxes the Trump administration has placed on China. During the first quarter of this year, motor vehicle production plunged 14.9%. Furniture output fell 5.8%. Clothing production has dropped 22.6%.
"Manufacturing is still struggling, but no meltdown," said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. While manufacturing plays an outsized role in the stock market and politics,"a very mild recession in the sector doesn't necessarily say anything much about broader GDP growth," Shepherdson said.
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