Durable Goods Continue to Rise
Posted June 25, 2013 & filed under References
New orders for manufactured durable goods rose again in May, continuing an upward trend that was started in April of this year. According to the advance report put out by the US Department of Commerce, orders for US durable goods increased by 3.6% to $231 billion, a number that is predicted to rise even higher in the coming months.
This is good news for the reviving manufacturing industry, which saw an increase of 3.3% in durable goods for the month of April. Consistent increases in all areas of durable goods are becoming more common as the industry begins to step up and hire more skilled workers to fill vacant positions. As faith is slowly restored in the economy through consumer spending, the demand for long-lasting goods will surely rise even higher.
Transportation, which has seen increases in three of the last four months, led the way with an increase of $6.9 billion, or 10.2%, capping off at $72 billion in new orders. A steady stream of commercial aircraft orders is mostly responsible for the increase, which added $6.3 billion to the overall total.
Among the other areas that have significantly picked up speed is computers and electronic products, up $0.4 billion (0.8%). This is the second consecutive monthly increase, a sign that multiple areas are seeing similar growth pattern. Capital goods also increased by $7.1 billion, a 9.3% increase that bring the total to $83.5 billion.
The revised data from the April report (which increased by an average of $0.3 billion) revealed numbers even larger than what was forecasted in last month’s advance report, demonstrating that, despite these already solid numbers, the industry could be doing even better than predicted.
These numbers, when combined with a $2.8 billion increase in shipments (1.2%), show that the manufacturing industry appears to be doing quite well as we enter the summer months. If these trends continue through the summer and into the fall, the manufacturing could be in a great position to close out a successful 2013 year.
By Kevin Withers
Image courtesy of Daniel*1977 via Flickr
