From X, on Thursday:
That is past ridiculous: industrial manufacturing and capability utilization noticed one other large downward revision, and Jul’s print nonetheless got here in adverse M/M – manufacturing is in recession:
Word: Dr. Antoni has used industrial manufacturing, capability utilization within the above graph, quite than manufacturing.
This struck me as an odd characterization, so I plotted the information over the identical interval (utilizing manufacturing as a substitute of business classification).
Determine 1: Manufacturing manufacturing (blue, left scale), employment (tan, left scale), combination hours (inexperienced, left scale), and actual valued added (pink), all in logs, 2007M12=0, and capability utilization in manufacturing, in % (black, proper scale). NBER outlined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded grey. Word: 2007M12 is NBER’s enterprise cycle peak. Supply: Federal Reserve, BLS, BEA by way of FRED, NBER.
The determine highlights two factors: (1) manufacturing manufacturing (Fed index) and worth added differ, because the former is gross, the latter web; (2) employment and hours are problematic measures for indicators since productiveness in manufacturing is larger than the general financial system.
Whereas capability utilization has declined, it’s nonetheless larger than the extent on the eve of the pandemic.
It’s onerous to see what’s occurring extra just lately, so I current the corresponding post-pandemic information in Determine 2:
Determine 2: Manufacturing manufacturing (blue, left scale), employment (tan, left scale), combination hours (inexperienced, left scale), and actual valued added (pink), all in logs, 2021M07=0, and capability utilization in manufacturing, in % (black, proper scale). Supply: Federal Reserve, BLS, BEA by way of FRED.
We don’t have worth added for Q2, however we do have manufacturing manufacturing and employment by means of July. These preliminary figures point out slowing, however not clear to me they’re into recession territory (no matter a sectoral recession is).
