(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Manufacturing’s (Latest) Recession Looks Like It’s Over

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aluminum, China, Commerce Department, Federal Reserve, Great Recession, industrial production, inflation-adjusted output, manufacturing, manufacturing production, metals tariffs, recession, steel, tariffs, Trade, trade war, Trump, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Let’s do something a little different this time in RealityChek‘s monthly examination of the Federal Reserve’s latest domestic U.S. manufacturing output figures – which came out this morning and bring the story through December and therefore through full-year 2019 (at least preliminarily).

Instead of focusing on the industries most seriously affected by President Trump’s tariff-heavy trade policies (mainly the metals tariffs, given big measurement problems with the China duties), let’s look at the question of whether manufacturing remains in recession – which has big, trade war-related implications because this Trump campaign is widely blamed for many of manufacturing’s recent weakness.

There’s considerable evidence that the answer is “Yes” – that industry’s inflation-adjusted production (the measure used by the Fed) is back in growth mode, though just barely.

But the question remains an open one. That’s partly because the answer depends on which baseline date you use for the start of the manufacturing recession, which unit of time you use (along with which particular manufacturing output gauge you favor).

Among that evidence tilting toward “Yes” – today’s Fed data.  Specifically, December’s 0.16 percent monthly increase in constant dollar manufacturing output means that, since June, such production is up. Now it’s only up by 0.04 percent. But since that’s a cumulative increase over the last six months (i.e., two consecutive quarters), the technical definition of recession no longer applies.

Or does it? The same Fed figures show that, between December, 2018 and December, 2019, after-inflation manufacturing output was down – by 1.26 percent. So the recession is still on, right?

Maybe. But use another baseline – April, 2018. As RealityChek regulars know, that’s the first full month in which significant Trump tariffs went into effect (on imports of aluminum and steel). Since then, though, price-adjusted manufacturing production has grown by 0.38 percent. This result, therefore, indicates that, although the President’s trade policies seem to have delivered a hit to domestic manufacturing, it was pretty negligible, and it’s already over (at least for now).

To complicate matters still further, as RealityChek reported last July, according to the Fed’s figures, manufacturing has suffered several recessions since the current economic recovery began (in the middle of 2009).  Indeed, as of this morning, it  still hasn’t recovered from the Great Recession that began at the end of 2007!

At the same time, another set of U.S. government data support the conclusion that there has been no trade war-related manufacturing recession during the Trump years – or manufacturing recession of any kind.

These statistics come from the Commerce Department’s “GDP [Gross Domestic Output] by Industry” reports. They use the same measure used by the Fed for tracking manufacturing growth (or contraction), but they’re kept on a quarterly, not monthly, basis. As a result, these numbers aren’t issued as frequently.

Yet the latest results came out January 9, and although they stop at the third quarter of last year, they show that in real terms, domestic manufacturing under Mr. Trump never shrank on net for two straight quarters, much less over any longer time frame. Here are the quarterly change figures:

2Q 16-1Q 17 :+0.32%

1Q 17-2Q 17: -0.7%

2Q 17-3Q 17: +0.35%

3Q 17-4Q 17: +1.22%

4Q 17-1Q 18: +0.38%

1Q 18-2Q 18: +0.09%

2Q 18-3Q 18: +1.38%*

3Q 18-4Q 18: +0.38%

4Q 18-1Q 19: +0.43%

1Q 19-2Q 19: -0.38%

2Q 19-3Q 19: +0.67%

*those Trump metals tariffs began in this quarter

Indeed, what comes through loud and clear from them is that not only has there been no manufacturing recession on President Trump’s watch, but there hasn’t even been an output slowdown.

It’s always possible to point to the counter-factual – that is, in this instance, to try to figure out how matters would look without any Trump tariffs, or similar Trump efforts to transform U.S. trade policy. And it’s certainly conceivable that domestic industry would have fared even better had Trump abjured all tariffs.

But that’s not the only counter-factual. For example, what if the rest of the world had been able to deal with the pressure created by China’s steel dumping by dumping its own steel into the United States (which hasn’t happened because the Trump metal tariffs were global)? What if China itself had remained completely free to send artificially low-priced (because heavily subsidized) product into the US market? What if President Trump had kept the United States in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement (TPP), with its wide open back door for imports with lots of Chinese content, while China remained under no obligation whatever to open its market to U.S. products? It’s easy to see that U.S.-based manufacturing could have gone on the critical list.

What’s certain, however, is that according to the most authoritative data available, claims of tariffs-led disaster for U.S. manufacturing have been either much ado about nothing, or much ado about very little. Could the coming months finally bear out the worst fears of cheerleaders for pre-Trump trade policies and other globalists? Of course. But that’s simply speculation, which counts much less than facts.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Is Manufacturing Employment Being Undercut by Boeing Along with Trade Wars?

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737 Max, aerospace, aircraft, aluminum, Boeing, China, Jobs, manufacturing, metals, metals tariffs, metals-using industries, steel, supply chain, tariffs, trade war, {What's Left of) Our Economy

One of the biggest questions raised by the new (lousy) manufacturing results of this morning’s monthly U.S. jobs report concerns whether industry’s dismal recent performance is being impacted more by President Trump’s tariff-heavy trade policies or by Boeing’s aircraft safety woes. The bulk of the evidence released this morning seems to point to the trade wars as the continuing main culprit, but also to some Boeing-related puzzles. 

Overall, the sector lost 12,000 jobs on month in December – its worst such result (excluding October, whose figures were distorted by the General Motors strike) since August, 2016’s 23,000 decrease).  Moreover, the year-end annual manufacturing jobs gain of 46,000 was the lowest such figure since 2016’s 7,000 loss.  (For comparison’s sake, 2018’s annual manufacturing employment increase of 264,000 was the best such result since 1997’s 304,000.  

The trade wars evidence for the recent deterioration comes in the form of comparisons between the major metals-using industries during the early months following the imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum, and afterwards (when many Trump critics argue that the trade curbs’ impact began sinking in). As always, the impact of Mr. Trump’s levies on imports from China remain too diffused throughout the manufacturing sector – and too unevenly so – to be gauged reliably. For good measure, they’ve also been threatened and applied in a confusing, on-and-off manner, and the recent Phase One trade deal and announcement of follow-on negotiations looks unlikely to end much of the measurement uncertainty.

First, here are the data on employment changes in those metals-using sectors from April, 2018 (the first full month during which the tariffs were in effect) through last month. Figures for the U.S. private sector overall, manufacturing overall, and manufacturing’s durable goods super-sector (in which most of the main metals users are classified) are included for comparison’s sake. Keep in mind that the results for household appliances also reflect a separate set of tariffs for large household laundry machines that have been in place since February, 2018.

                                                  Old thru Nov      New thru Nov       Thru Dec

entire private sector:                +2.82 percent      +2.81 percent    +2.92 percent

overall manufacturing:            +1.83 percent      +1.84 percent    +1.75 percent

durable goods:                         +1.99 percent      +2.02 percent    +1.94 percent

fabricated metals products:     +1.51 percent       +1.45 percent   +0.96 percent

non-electrical machinery:       +1.26 percent       +1.56 percent   +1.37 percent

automotive vehicles & parts:   -0.45 percent        -0.73 percent    -0.81 percent

household appliances*:            not available        -5.84 percent     not available

aerospace products & parts*:  not available        +9.02 percent     not available

*data are one month behind

There’s no mistaking that net new hiring in the metals-using sectors has been slower than in the rest of manufacturing and the private sector. As is clear from the table below, that’s a substantial change from the early post-metals tariffs period (presented here as April, 2018 through December, 2018 and January, 2019), when most metals-users were leaders in boosting payrolls:

                                                                Thru December           Thru January

entire private sector:                                +1.36 percent            +1.60 percent

overall manufacturing:                            +1.39 percent            +1.49 percent

durable goods:                                         +1.72 percent            +1.97 percent

fabricated metals products:                     +1.57 percent            +1.78 percent

non-electrical machinery:                        +2.33 percent           +2.57 percent

automotive vehicles & parts:                   +1.07 percent           +1.15 percent

household appliances:                              -2.05 percent –           2.52 percent

aerospace products & parts:                    +5.47 percent           +5.87 percent

But what about the Boeing effect – which figures to be considerable given the major role played by the aircraft and aerospace giant not only in American industry but the entire economy? As the data below show, the impact of the company’s production slowdown and more recent suspension of the previously best-selling but flawed 737 Max model (not to mention worldwide groundings) is anything but clear-cut. Presented here are the job change figures for aircraft and related parts industries, along with the numbers for other major supplier industries and the usual comparison sectors for the eight months preceding and following the announcement of global 737 Max groundings last March. The latest available data for the aerospace-specific industries only go through November, so that’s the final month used for the entire table.

                                                 July, 2018 thru March           March thru Nov

entire private sector:                     +1.38 percent                    +1.03 percent

overall manufacturing:                 +0.98 percent                    +0.28 percent

durable goods:                              +1.17 percent                    +0.11 percent

fabricated metals products:          +0.89 percent                     -0.31 percent

non-electrical machinery:            +1.38 percent                     -1.16 percent

aerospace products & parts:        +4.34 percent                    +2.27 percent

aircraft:                                        +6.59 percent                    +2.09 percent

aircraft engines & engine parts:  +1.04 percent                    +3.67 percent

non-engine aircraft parts/equip: +3.06 percent                     +1.22 percent

The pattern seems to show employment slowdowns nearly across the board. But the two non-aerospace-specific supplier industries – fabricated metals and non-electrical machinery – saw net hiring increases turn into net hiring decreases. Moreover, in aircraft engines and engine parts, payroll improvements actually accelerated.

At least some of this apparent paradox might result from the November end date used here. Boeing didn’t decide to suspend outright production of the troubled model until December 16, and the decision won’t even go into effect until sometime this month. Indeed, the company initially announced that no layoffs were accompanying the halt, although significant workforce reduction plans were finally made public yesterday. In this vein, reports of actual supply chain employment effects didn’t begin appearing until mid-December. Moreover, it’s possible that employment pain has been felt by the non-aerospace-specific companies in Boeing’s vast domestic supply chain before it spread to the aerospace-related firms.

So the safest bottom line so far seems to be this: Contributors to manufacturing’s recent jobs slump might now include both trade war- and non trade war-related developments. And anyone singling out one or the other deserves considerable skepticism.

Making News: Podcast Now On-Line of a Trade Policy Debate with Obama’s Former Top Economic Advisor

Tags

Barack Obama, China, decoupling, Jason Furman, Jobs, Making News, manufacturing, metals tariffs, Munk Debates, tariffs, Trade, Trade Deficits, trade war, Trump, wages

I’m pleased to start off the New Year by announcing that a podcast is now on-line of a major debate over trade and globalization in which I participated in late this fall.  It was sponsored by Munk Debates – a series of policy exchanges that since 2008 have featured some of the world’s leading thinkers and policymakers in head-to-head events dealing with issues like the future of capitalism, the China threat, the rise of populism, and the emergence of political correctness.

I wasn’t crazy about the clickbait-y title (“Be it resolved, tariffs are terrific.”).  But I say “major” because my interlocutor was no less than Jason Furman, whose previous positions include chief economic advisor to former President Barack Obama. In addition to clashing over various individual on Trump tariffs (e.g., on metals), we also crossed verbal swords over the possibility and desirability of decoupling America’s economy from Chiina.

You can listen to the debate at this link, and given the importance of the subject and the prominence of my opponent, I’d be especially interested in your own reactions.

As usual, moreover, keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: New U.S. Jobs Data Show a Continued Trade Punch for Manufacturing – & Industry Resilience

Tags

aircraft, aluminum, automotive, Boeing, Bureau of Labor Statistics, China, General Motors, General Motors strike, GM, manufacturing, manufacturing jobs, metals tariffs, metals-using industries, steel, tariffs, Trade, Trump, {What's Left of) Our Economy

For observers of U.S. domestic manufacturing, this morning’s new jobs report (for November) could not have made clearer how the recent strike at General Motors (GM) have bollixed up the recent monthly totals for reasons having nothing to do with the underlying state of the economy or with President Trump’s trade wars. Nonetheless, even with the strike’s effects filtered out, industry’s job creation this year continues to lag behind last year’s strong pace, and damage from Mr. Trump’s metals tariffs in particular is still apparent – if anything but calamitous.

Moreover, in a continuing mystery, although Boeing’s safety woes are kneecapping domestic manufacturing’s trade performance, their impact on manufacturing employment is still nowhere to be seen.

Because of the GM strike’s impact, the overall manufacturing job figures for November (along with the revised October numbers) are pretty worthless. What does matter are the results with motor vehicles and parts stripped out (although even taking this step fails to account for the strike’s effects on all the industries making up the domestic automotive supply chain).

Ex-automotive, the previously reported October U.S. manufacturing monthly jobs change would have come to a 5,600 net monthly gain, rather than a 36,000 net loss. The revised October manufacturing jobs change reported today was somewhat better – without the GM strike, a net sequential employment loss pegged at a higher 43,000 would have been a net gain of 6,800. (And another revised October figure will come out next month, along with a new November number.)

For its first read on November’s performance, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that domestic industry’s payrolls rose by 54,000 on net. Removing from that total the 41,300 jump in automotive employment stemming from the return to work of GM workers and of employees at parts companies who may have been laid off, and you get a 12,700 monthly increase in manufacturing jobs.

Encouragingly, that’s the best such performance since January’s 17,000 payroll advance. But the year-on-year improvements remain humdrum even taking out the automotive distortions.

For example, without the automotive distortions, October’s stand-still manufacturing jobs total would only have been 56,000 higher than that of October, 2018. Between the previous Octobers, manufacturing employment surged by 275,000. The comparable November numbers? A 32,000 improvement between 2018 and 2019, as opposed to 228.000 between 2017 and 2018.

The November jobs report’s news for so-called trade hawks wasn’t good, either. As usual the impact of the Trump administration’s steel and aluminum tariffs are relatively easy to gauge, and it remains the case that the metals-using sectors’ employment performance has lost notable momentum versus the rest of manufacturing and the rest of the private sector overall.

Below are the latest figures for employment changes at major metals-using industries starting with the April, 2018 – the first full month in which these levies were in effect, and run through October. For comparison’s sake, the results for manufacturing overall are also included, along with those of the durable goods super-sector in which most of the big metals-users are grouped:

                                                       Old thru Oct       New thru          Thru Nov

entire private sector:                    +2.58 percent   +2.62 percent    +2.82 percent

overall manufacturing:                +1.40 percent   +1.40 percent    +1.83 percent

durable goods:                            +1.48 percent    +1.43 percent    +1.99 percent

fabricated metals products:        +1.57 percent    +1.49 percent    +1.51 percent

non-electrical machinery:          +1.74 percent    +1.65 percent    +1.26 percent

automotive vehicles & parts:      -4.89 percent    -4.60 percent      -0.45 percent

household appliances*:               not available    -6.31 percent      not available

aerospace products & parts*:     not available   +8.98 percent       not available

*data are one month behind

The end of the GM effect is clear from the big differences between the October and November overall manufacturing and durable goods jobs changes. But by the same token, November was a lousy employment month for the big machinery and fabricated metals sectors. Look at that aerospace products and parts increase, though – job creation in this Boeing-heavy sector continues to excel.

Now it’s possible that much of the damage being done to the company, and manufacturing more generally, is being done in its own vast domestic supply chain. But the employment numbers for narrower sectors like aircraft and their parts show nothing of the kind, and the effects on companies in other supplier sectors (e.g., machinery, metals, and fabricated metals products) simply can’t be teased out.

But even worse for the metals-using industries generally, whereas most were job creation leaders last year, they’ve turned into job creation laggards this year. This deterioration is made clear from comparing the previous table with the following table, which shows their employment performance from the metals tariffs advent through the end of last year and the beginning of this year:

                                                          Thru December               Thru January

entire private sector:                         +1.36 percent                +1.60 percent

overall manufacturing:                     +1.39 percent                +1.49 percent

durable goods:                                  +1.72 percent                +1.97 percent

fabricated metals products:              +1.57 percent                +1.78 percent

non-electrical machinery:                +2.33 percent               +2.57 percent

automotive vehicles & parts:          +1.07 percent               +1.15 percent

household appliances:                     -2.05 percent                -2.52 percent

aerospace products & parts:           +5.47 percent               +5.87 percent

Of course, President Trump’s tariffs on several hundred billion dollars worth of imports heading America’s way from China are affecting domestic manufacturing as well. But because of these products ubiquity throughout domestic industry, the greatly varying levels of their U.S. market share, and the duties’ on-again-off-again nature (prominently on display in recent days), I continue to despair of quantifying the impact usefully.

And speaking of Mr. Trump, there’s no doubt that, contrary to his confidence, trade wars are not “easy to win” – and can be highly disruptive even for countries like the United States with ample leverage to prevail. That’s inevitable when you’re trying to reverse several decades of policy. All the same, U.S. domestic manufacturing’s employment performance, even in leading victim industries, has held up pretty well since the President began responding to foreign predation in earnest. Whether the manufacturing interests he’s counting on to win reelection will agree is another question entirely.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Were the US Washing Machine Tariffs Really Failures?

Tags

consumers, Federal Reserve, General Electric, imports, jobs multiplier, large residential washers, LRWs, manufacturing jobs, metals tariffs, safeguard tariffs, South Korea, tariff-rate quota, tariffs, U.S. International Trade Commission, University of Chicago, USITC, washing machines, Whirlpool, {What's Left of) Our Economy

It’s as close to a slam dunk conclusion as can be – at least according to economists, think tank hacks, and Mainstream Media journalists: The early 2018 U.S. tariffs on large household laundry machines have been a dismal failure.

Or have they been?

The levies belong in a category different from those of the main Trump administration trade-limiting measures because they were first mandated by an independent federal agency (the U.S. International Trade Commission, or USITC) via a long-standing legal process.  And they’ve been panned for supercharging costs for consumers, and padding the profits of the domestic industry to extents that dwarfed the new production and jobs they fostered. (Here’s a typical example of the press’ evaluation, drawing on equally typical research from the venerable University of Chicago and the even venerable-er Federal Reserve.)

What has gone oddly unreported has been the verdict rendered by the USITC – which came out in August. Sure, the agency is grading itself. At the same time, it’s privy to the most authoritative data (taken from the domestic and foreign companies involved themselves), and it’s surely worth noting that the Commission paints a significantly different , and brighter, picture.

The tariffs, put in place in February, 2018, affected the nation’s total global imports of these products, but mainly impacted such “large residential washers” (LRWs) from China, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam – the biggest foreign suppliers to the U.S. market. The duties’ aim: stemming a sudden surge of LRWs that injure U.S.-based manufacturers. But they don’t shelter the domestic industry forever.

After three years – the amount of time the Commission has determined these domestic manufacturers need to adjust – they’re phased out for both the final products and many of the parts covered in the “safeguard order.” In addition, consistent with their surge focus, they only apply to imports above a certain level of units – a trade curb known as a “tariff-rate quota.” In all, moreover, the ultimate objective is to give victim industries time to adjust and then stand on their own two feet. That’s why detailed adjustment plans are a condition of receiving tariff relief.

To some extent, the USITC’s judgment doesn’t contrast dramatically different from that of the tariffs’ critics. Both noted (in the Commission’s words) “generally increased prices” and “decreased imports.” The Commission, though reported some developments generally missed by the critics (especially “some improvement in the financial performance of continuously operating [domestic] producers,” and market share gains for these companies) and some given decidedly short shrift (“increased production by two new U.S. producers” – both of whose owners come from South Korea, undoubtedly because the option of supplying the American market through exports was sharply limited).

The Commission didn’t address one of the critics’ most compelling points – that the new U.S. jobs were created at a cost to consumers (via the higher prices they’ve paid) of a whopping $817,000 per job. But the University of Chicago/Federal Reserve study actually conceded that this number might be an exaggeration, since manufacturing jobs (like all jobs) create a “multiplier effect” – that is, they foster additional employment in related industries ranging from suppliers of inputs to transportation, packaging, and warehousing services. What these researchers didn’t mention is that manufacturing’s jobs multiplier is unusually high.

Moreover, like virtually all scholars of trade, tariffs, and employment, the Chicago/Fed team neglected other benefits of manufacturing job creation (and prevention of further manufacturing job loss). These include:

>avoiding the wage losses suffered by displaced manufacturing workers who find work in lower-paid industries (an especially important consideration given today’s very low overall unemployment rates)

>avoiding the revenue losses incurred by these workers’ communities and the economy as a whole due to reductions in their taxable income;

>avoiding the increased pressure on social programs required to serve employees who can’t find new jobs – which encompass not only unemployment compensation but spending that seeks to address the pathologies that often follow working class Americans’ deteriorating personal finances, like divorce, delinquency, alcoholism, and opioid and other drug use, not to mention higher mortality;

>and the costs incurred by local businesses because of worker-customers who can no longer afford as many of their products and services, which of course reduces business’ own taxable income and additionally crimps public finance at all levels. (See, e.g., this highly cited study.)

The USITC report, moreover, shed light on another big reason that the costs-per-manufacturing-job-saved might be exaggerated: Not all of the increased costs of the tariff-ed products are due to the tariffs. In particular, the Commission listed no less than 14 factors other than import competition (and the tariffs placed on these goods) that affect the prices of LRWs. They range from raw materials, transportation, and energy costs to competition levels from substitute and between domestic producers, U.S.-based production capacity, productivity changes, labor contracts, and state and local government incentives, and demand levels at home and abroad (because all the U.S.- and foreign-owned manufacturers sell all over the world). The USITC then proceeded to ask producers, importers, and purchasers (retailers) to rate the importance of these factors on prices since the tariffs’ imposition in February, 2018.

The answers were reported in table III-26, and import competition levels were anything but dominant. Indeed, their importance consistently was rated by all three stakeholder as lower or no greater than that not only of raw materials costs (higher due to entirely separate tariffs on metals that were imposed by the Trump administration) but of energy costs, domestic production capacity (surely limited over time by the previous import flood), the allocation of this production capacity to other products, productivity levels, labor agreements, transportation and delivery costs, and domestic demand levels.

And adding to the case for reducing the costs per job figure: According to the official U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, after jumping by 16.31 percent from the February, 2018 onset of the tariffs through that November, they’ve since fallen by 9.73 percent (through September).

In fact, this development leads to a major point completely missed by the tariffs’ critics. As also indicated by the phaseout schedule and the linkage of the tariffs to the submission of adjustment blueprints, the levies were never intended to produce instant results, or to furnish crutches forever. The USITC describes the implementation of these plans starting on p. IV-5 and, more revealing, presents the evaluations of the retailers – who are bound to be the most demanding judges.

The reviews are mixed, but varying numbers of these companies stated that the two domestic recipients of the tariff relief – Whirlpool and General Electric – introduced new products (the most commonly cited improvement), upgraded product quality, expanded marketing campaigns, bettered their customer service, and taken other positive steps (Table IV-2).

Will these measures prove sufficient? Even after the tariffs come off, definitive answers will prove elusive, because as made clear, the LRW trade policy picture contains so many moving parts. What does look definitive, however, is that so far, the critics have engaged in a flawed rush to judgment.

 

 

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Thoroughly Muddled Manufacturing Production Figure

Tags

aluminum, Boeing, China tariffs, Federal Reserve, General Motors, General Motors strike, industrial production, inflation-adjusted output, manufacturing, metals tariffs, metals-using industries, recession, steel, supply chains, tariffs, trade war, {What's Left of) Our Economy

The latest U.S. inflation-adjusted manufacturing output numbers (for September) are now out, and they leave more muddled than ever the matter of how much (if any) damage American industry has suffered from President Trump’s tariff-heavy trade policies.

And it’s not just because of ongoing uncertainties about the effects of President Trump’s current and threatened China tariffs, and all the fluctuations in coverage and rates. It’s not just because of the month-long General Motors strike – which could end soon if the union rank-and-file approve the settlement agreed on by their leaders, and which the Federal Reserve itself (which tracks manufacturing output) fingered as a big culprit behind September’s lousy read. It’s also because of the impact of Boeing aircraft’s continuing safety woes (a subject on which the Fed has been strangely silent).

As I’ve reported, the Boeing effect finally showed up in the latest U.S. trade data – which is especially important given the aerospace giant’s reliance on exports. But it hasn’t appeared anywhere else, including the new manufacturing production figures, even though orders for Boeing jets have been dramatically slashed, and even though the company is a huge consumer of materials, parts, and components from other manufacturing sectors.

With all those cautions out on the table, here’s what the new Fed statistics showed. After-inflation domestic manufacturing output slid by 0.48 percent sequentially in September, the worst such result since April’s 0.87 percent decrease, and more than enough to keep industry overall in recession. Since July, 2018, its real output is down a total of 0.38 percent.

GM’s labor troubles clearly dragged the total number down. Constant dollar vehicles and parts production in September sank by 4.22 percent on month, its worst such performance since January’s 7.18 percent nosedive (when the federal government was still shut down, surely depressing consumer confidence).

The Fed made clear that “Excluding motor vehicles and parts, [its] overall [industrial production] index and the manufacturing index each moved down 0.2 percent.” (More precisely, the real manufacturing decline would have been only 0.15 percent without automotive.) Oddly, though, the Fed didn’t mention that any development that depresses vehicle and parts production is bound to ripple through all the industries making up its extensive supply chain, too.

Yet despite the export troubles revealed in the trade figures, the Fed’s statistics show that aircraft and parts production enjoyed a terrific September. Indeed, the 1.82 percent sequential jump was the biggest since March, 2014’s 2.42 percent.

Nor do sectors comprising the aerospace supply chain (which broadly overlaps considerably with automotive’s) seem to be lagging significantly, except for primary metals. For example, below are the inflation-adjusted output figures for some big supplier sectors and control groups since April (the first full data month following actions the world over grounding or banning from various air spaces Boeing’s 737 Max jets):

overall manufacturing: +0.44 percent

durable goods: +0.75 percent

primary metals: -3.38 percent

fabricated metals products: -0.17 percent

machinery: +1.19 percent

As for the impact of the trade wars, as usual, the consequences of the President’s tariffs on aluminum and steel are easiest to gauge, since they’ve been on the longest, and the major metals-using industries (the presumed leading victims) are so easy to identify. The table below represents the changes in their real output since April, 2018 (the first full month in which the levies were in effect), with the data for manufacturing overall used as a control group, and durable goods included because it’s the super-category in which most of the main metals-using industries are located:

                                           Old Apr thru Aug   New Apr thru Aug   April thru Sept

overall manufacturing:        +0.54 percent          +0.57 percent       +0.09 percent

durables manufacturing:     +1.98 percent          +2.00 percent       +1.25 percent

fabricated metals prods:     +1.88 percent          +2.07 percent       +1.85 percent

machinery:                         +0.67 percent          +1.39 percent           0 percent

automotive:                        +0.17 percent          +0.30 percent        -3.92 percent

major appliances:               -2.04 percent           -1.22 percent        -2.19 percent

aircraft and parts:              +4.39 percent          +3.54 percent        +5.43 percent

The results are mixed – and obviously the most recent automotive number has little to do with the metals duties. Otherwise, three of the remaining four metals users have gained momentum versus the rest of manufacturing (durables, appliances, and aircraft), although their output performances remain subdued in absolute terms, and machinery has lost momentum.

Unfortunately, this kind of analysis not only remains much more difficult for the impact of the China tariffs. But every twist and turn in the trade talks saga only increases the challenge. Primarily because of uncertainties stemming from differences between the manufactured goods classification systems used by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office (which publishes the lists of tariff-ed items) and the main system used by other U.S. government agencies (like the Fed), the sectors below are among the handful that are reasonably certain to have faced tariff pressure since the first duties were placed in imports from China in July, 2018. Each column shows the real output changes since their first full month in effect through July, August, and September of this year:

                                                  Aug thru July      Aug thru Aug      Aug thru Sept

overall manufacturing:             -0.89 percent       -0.33 percent       -0.81 percent

ball bearings:                            -2.32 percent       -2.26 percent       -2.30 percent

industrial heating equip:          -4.58 percent       -1.72 percent       -1.01 percent

farm machinery & equip:        -6.91 percent      +9.71 percent       -0.69 percent

oil/gas drilling platform pts:   -0.86 percent       -1.38 percent       -1.38 percent

As is clear, these results are even more mixed than for the metals-using industries – to which all of these products belong. And with the President’s trade policies all too likely to stay ragged as the 2020 elections come closer, “more confusion” looks like the safest prediction possible regarding American manufacturing production 

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: The Trade Wars’ Bite on Manufacturing Jobs Looks Deeper

Tags

2020 elections, aluminum, China, Jobs, Labor Department, manufacturing, metals tariffs, metals-using industries, private sector, steel, tariffs, Trade, trade war, wages, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Today’s U.S. jobs report (for September) contained much better news for President Trump and his supporters in terms of the economy’s overall performance than it did in terms of his trade policies. American employment on net rose by a decent 136,000 sequentially last month, and the revisions (which boosted the July and August numbers by a total of 45,000) were especially encouraging.

But payrolls in domestic manufacturing – a sector heavily exposed to trade – shrank month-to-month by 2,000. That decline was the first such dip since March’s 3,000. And despite the big positive revisions in overall employment, manufacturing’s left its modest recent hiring record virtually unchanged.

Worse for the President, manufacturing’s metals-using industries in September continued their worrisome recent transition from employment out-performers for the first half year or so after the first duties on steel and aluminum were levied to employment laggards.

Moreover, although manufacturing employment does face two obstacles having nothing to do with the Mr. Trump’s trade wars – Boeing’s safety woes and the strike that began last month against General Motors – damage from the former isn’t yet evident in the jobs data, and the latter probably began too recently to be showing up in the numbers yet.

The impact of the much broader China tariffs remained as elusive as ever, largely because of the on-again, off-again nature of the President’s policies, along with changes and threatened changes in tariff rates on so many goods. But even if Mr. Trump was a model of consistency on this score, the China levies’ effects would be fiendishly difficult to gauge because manufacturing inputs from China are used so broadly but so unevenly by domestic manufacturers.

By contrast, the trends for the metals-using industries look clear enough. This time, I’ll present not only their employment changes since April, 2018 (the first full month in which the metals levies were in effect) and September, but the same employment changes for an earlier post-tariff period. First, the latest numbers:

                                                   Old thru Aug     New thru Aug      Thru Sept

entire private sector:                  +2.30 percent    +2.31 percent    +2.40 percent

overall manufacturing:              +1.73 percent    +1.73 percent    +1.71 percent

durable goods:                           +2.10 percent    +2.10 percent    +2.05 percent

fabricated metals products:        +1.58 percent   +1.56 percent    +1.36 percent

non-electrical machinery:          +2.19 percent    +2.20 percent   +1.95 percent

automotive vehicles & parts:        0 percent         -0.23 percent    -0.69 percent

household appliances*:               not available     -6.31 percent    not available

aerospace products & parts*:      not available    +8.38 percent    not available

*data are one month behind

The loss of the metals-using sectors’ employment momentum in relative and absolute terms can be easily seen. But the more important comparison is between the above figures and those below, which present these trends for the first 10 months of the metals tariffs.

                                                   Old thru Dec    New thru Dec      Thru Jan

entire private sector:                 +1.37 percent   +1.36 percent   +1.60 percent

overall manufacturing:             +1.45 percent   +1.39 percent   +1.49 percent

durable goods:                          +1.67 percent   +1.72 percent   +1.97 percent

fabricated metals products:      +1.75 percent    +1.57 percent   +1.78 percent

non-electrical machinery:        +2.20 percent    +2.33 percent   +2.57 percent

automotive vehicles & parts:  +0.77 percent     +1.07 percent   +1.15 percent

household appliances*:            not available      -2.21 percent     not available

aerospace products & parts*:   not available     +5.51 percent    not available

*data are one month behind

This table shows that except for the household appliances sector (which has faced a separate, product-specific set of tariffs on large household laundry equipment since February, 2018), and automotive, the metals-using sectors were creating new employment at a considerably faster pace than both the overall private economy and overall manufacturing. And automotive was closing the gap.

Aside from trade, the White House, and everyone seeking the best for the U.S. economy, should also be troubled by the drop in September in the year-on-year manufacturing jobs increase to 117,000. That’s the worst such performance since August, 2017’s 112,000 and less than half the rate of the previous September annual improvement (266,000).

Better news for Trump-ers? Manufacturing job creation during the first 31 months of the Trump presidency is still much better (464,000) than during the last 31 months of former President Barack Obama’s administration (198,000).

Matters look better for the President (and manufacturing workers) on the wages front. Although industry’s pre-inflation hourly pay only inched up on month by 0.07 percent, that result beat the 0.04 percent dip for the overall private sector. (The Labor Department, which tracks the employment and wages figures, doesn’t monitor public sector wages since they’re set largely by politicians’ decisions, not largely by market forces. Therefore, they say almost nothing about the state of the labor market or the economic in general.)

Moreover, this relatively good manufacturing’s wage performance continued a slow relative catch up trend that began this year. Since January, current-dollar private sector pay is up 1.92 percent, versus 2.20 percent for manufacturing workers.

All the same, since the current economic recovery began, in mid-2009, private sector wages have risen by 26.87 percent. Manufacturing’s increase? Only 21.03 percent. And these manufacturing wages rose faster during the last 31 months of the Obama presidency (6.04 percent) than during the first 31 months of the Trump administration (5.53 percent). 

The safest economic conclusion seems to be that manufacturing hiring is hardly in the dumps – as suggested by the latest (also September) soft data from the Institute for Supply Management.  Nor does this looks like a “Tariff-mageddon” is upon us. But manufacturing job creation is also well off 2018’s robust pace, and the more so in major trade-affected industries . And its underlying situation will as more difficult to describe the Boeing and General Motors effects become visible (assuming the auto strike isn’t settled quickly).

But as cautious as that analysis is, the political implications as the 2020 presidential campaign heats up are even murkier. For barring a dramatic change in the manufacturing picture, they’ll depend on voters deciding whether the Trump manufacturing, trade, and overall economic record are good enough.   

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Some Manufacturing Pushback Versus Tariff Gloom-Mongering

Tags

aluminum, Federal Reserve, industrial production, inflation-adjusted output, manufacturing, metals tariffs, metals-using industries, steel, tariffs, Trade, trade war, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Is U.S. domestic manufacturing emerging from its recent funk? This morning’s Federal Reserve industrial production figures (for August) certainly supply some compelling evidence. And some of the nation’s major metals-using industries – widely portrayed as major victims of Trump administration tariffs that have been in place since early 2018 on steel and aluminum – led the pack last month.

August’s 0.53 sequential real output increase wasn’t enough to pull domestic industry out of its current technical recession. But it did shorten the length of the downturn considerably. As of the previous industrial production report, manufacturing had been in recession since April, 2018 – with its inflation-adjusted output down 0.004 percent.

Today’s data revealed that constant-dollar production has now fallen 0.36 percent since the previous August. In addition, since its latest bottom (this April), after-inflation manufacturing output is up 0.89 percent. And sequentially, this production is up three of the last four months.

Moreover, the strong August performance of the metals-using sectors was noteworthy. These industries have faced wide-ranging tariffs on steel and aluminum since March, 2018, with April being the first full month in which the duties were in effect. (Major appliances have been an exception – they have also been coping with separate levies on large household laundry equipment since February, 2018.) As reported by RealityChek last month, some of these metals-users suffered a miserable July, indicating that the metals tariffs were finally taking a measurable toll, either because of the higher input costs they created, the greater uncertainty they generated, the impact of retaliatory foreign tariffs, or some combination of all three.

But as demonstrated by the following table, they regained much of their momentum relative to the rest of manufacturing last month. These figures represent the changes in their real output since April, 2018, with the data for manufacturing overall used as a control group.

                                              April thru June    April thru July    April thru August

overall manufacturing:         +0.42 percent       -0.01 percent        +0.54 percent

durables manufacturing:      +1.57 percent       +1.37 percent       +1.98 percent

fabricated metals products:  +1.89 percent      +0.95 percent        +1.88 percent

machinery:                           +0.78 percent       -0.88 percent        +0.67 percent

automotive:                          +0.69 percent      +1.20 percent       +0.17 percent

major appliances:                 -4.84 percent       -4.39 percent        -2.04 percent

aircraft and parts:                +2.39 percent      +3.59 percent       +4.39 percent

With the exception of the automotive sector (where a big inventory overhang could finally be slowing output significantly) and aircraft and parts (which keeps chugging along, so far despite Boeing’s safety troubles) these major metals-using sectors enjoyed Augusts that were much stronger in terms of growth than their Julys. And in August, durable goods overall (the manufacturing super-sector in which the main metals-using industries are located), major appliances, and aircraft and parts have recaptured the relative growth lead they’d lost the previous month.

The effects of President Trump’s China tariffs have been much more difficult to ascertain for many reasons: Even the earliest have been in effect only since last summer. Their nature has been so on-again-off-again nature. The original tariff levels on some have been increased. Their use is so widely (but often so thinly and non-uniformly) spread throughout American industry. And the official lists of tariff-ed products don’t match up precisely with the classification system used by the Fed (and the rest of the U.S. government) to track trends in manufacturing and the rest of the economy.

All the same, here are results for a handful of sectors reasonably certain to have faced tariff pressure since last August. Each column measures real output changes since that month.

                                                   Aug thru June    Aug thru July    Aug thru Aug

overall manufacturing:              -0.48 percent     -0.89 percent      -0.36 percent

ball bearings:                             -2.48 percent     -2.30 percent      -2.23 percent

industrial heating equip:           -4.96 percent     -4.16 percent      -2.52 percent

farm machinery & equip:         -6.44 percent     -6.91 percent     +9.71 percent

oil/gas drilling platform pts:   +2.18 percent     -0.84 percent       -1.04 percent

The sample size is obviously very small, and the results are almost as obviously a wash.

Looking ahead, domestic manufacturing – and especially the metals-using industries – faces at least two visible possible hurdles: Boeing’s ongoing woes, and a new strike at General Motors. And literally no one outside the Oval Office (assuming President Trump does) knows what the future will bring in terms of tariffs on imports from China, retaliation from Beijing. And don’t forget the Congressional vote on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada [trade] Agreement that may be coming.

But the August manufacturing production data were unquestionably solid. They continued a decent recent streak for the nation’s industries, and indicated considerable resilience – including possibly a growing ability to adapt to a radically different and volatile trade policy environment.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Good U.S. Manufacturing Jobs Report – for Trump Trade War Critics

Tags

aluminum, Jobs, Labor Department, manufacturing, metals tariffs, metals-using industries, steel, tariffs, Trade, trade war, Trump, {What's Left of) Our Economy

This morning’s August jobs report from the U.S. Labor Department was mediocre news for the American economy as a whole, but it finally brought some good news for opponents of President Trump’s trade policies. For the new monthly numbers, plus the latest set of benchmark revisions, finally revealed some notable damage to hiring in U.S. manufacturing in industries exposed the longest and most consistently to the tariffs he’s imposed.

Although it’s now gotten just about futile to measure the effect of Mr. Trump’s China policies – because of the on-again-off-again nature of his tariff and tariff threats, and because their future is still so cloudy – the President’s levies on steel and aluminum date from March, 2018 and most have stayed in place. Therefore, we have a solid idea over a respectable length of time over how these measures have affected manufacturing overall – as Trump critics have noted, not simply for the industries that have received trade protection, but for those (collectively much larger) sectors that use the two metals to make their final products.

As RealityChek regulars know, for many months following the metals tariffs’ imposition, these sectors had actually been outperforming not only the rest of manufacturing but the rest of the private sector economy on several fronts. (See, e.g., here and here.)

But the August jobs report makes clear that those days are over, at least for now. Below, as usual, are the figures for these main metals-using sectors since April, 2018 (the first full month in which the metals tariffs were in effect), along with the hiring statistics for two control groups: manufacturing overall, and the private sector overall.

                                                        Old thru July      New thru July      Thru August

entire private sector:                      +2.13 percent     +2.22 percent      +2.30 percent

overall manufacturing:                  +1.69 percent     +1.71 percent      +1.73 percent

durable goods:                               +2.10 percent     +2.10 percent      +2.10 percent

fabricated metals products:            +1.71 percent    +1.69 percent      +1.58 percent

non-electrical machinery:              +2.73 percent    +2.34 percent      +2.19 percent

automotive vehicles & parts:         +0.33 percent    -0.01 percent           0 percent

household appliances*:                   not available    -7.57 percent         not available

aerospace products & parts*:          not available   +8.36 percent         not available

*data are one month behind

As these figures demonstrate, except for aerospace (and oddly, because of Boeing’s safety troubles and their impact on this giant manufacturer’s sales and orders), all of the metals-using sectors are now under-performing the rest of industry and the private sector when it comes to net new job creation. And all except aerospace have displayed weaker relative momentum. (Don’t forget that the appliances totals have been affected not only by the metals tariffs, but by a separate set of product-specific tariffs levied on large household laundry equipment the month before.) 

The policy questions raised are whether these results mean either that Trump should rethink his decision to confront China’s economic and technological predation, or whether he should change tactics. My own answer is “No” in each case, since the stakes of countering China are so great, the losses are still small, and since the economy, manufacturing generally, and the metals-using industries could easily be revived – and strongly – with a big domestic infrastructure building and repair program. But the August jobs report does further undercut the President’s claim that “Trade wars are good, and easy to win.”

Meanwhile, the actual August manufacturing numbers and the revisions are worth examining. August’s 3,000 net monthly gain in manufacturing payrolls was the worst such improvement since May’s 2,000. And the revisions for July were nothing less than stunning: An initially reported 16,000 jobs sequential increase has been downgraded to 4,000 (a result that’s still preliminary). June’s downgrade was smaller – from a 12,000 advance to 10,000. But the initial estimate was 17,000, so the trend looks comparably bad.

Moreover, if the new (preliminary) August figure holds, it would produce the worst year-on-year manufacturing jobs performance (up 138,000) since September, 2017 (123,000). Last August’s year-on-year manufacturing employment advance, moreover, was nearly twice as strong – 256,000.

That July revision was so big that it could justify some hope that subsequent reevaluations will generate significantly upside surprises. President Trump, moreover, can still brag that manufacturing job creation during his first thirty months in office (up 467,00, or 3.77 percent since February, 2017) has considerably exceeded that of former President Obama’s final thirty months (up 179,000, or 1.47 percent). But hopes are just that. And many more months like the last few, and the Trump manufacturing jobs record will start looking awfully similar to that of his predecessor – both economically and politically.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Manufacturing’s Recession Lengthens but Tariffs’ Role Stays Fuzzy

Tags

aluminum, China, Fed, Federal Reserve, industrial production, manufacturing, metals, metals tariffs, metals-using industries, real output, steel, tariffs, Trade, Trump, {What's Left of) Our Economy

The modest momentum showed by domestic manufacturing in the previous two Federal Reserve industrial production reports disappeared in this morning’s edition of the monthly survey, as overall real manufacturing output in July fell month-to-month (by 0.36 percent) for the first time since April. Worse, the new data lengthened domestic industry’s recession, with inflation-adjusted production now off by a hair (0.004 percent) since April, 2018 – a stretch much longer than the two straight quarters of cumulative decline that qualify as a downturn for most economists.

This morning’s Fed numbers also provide some additional evidence that President Trump’s tariff-centric trade policies have begun to erode manufacturing’s performance. But only some. Specifically, whereas in the first months following the imposition of metals tariffs in particular, metals-using sectors were handily beating the rest of manufacturing by every major metric, July’s industrial production numbers showed that their more recent relative performance continues to have been much more mixed.

As usual, nearly all of the best evidence concerns the impact of the tariffs on steel and aluminum, for reasons including their relatively long duration (April, 2018 was the first full month they were in place), and the ease with which metals-using sectors can be identified. And as usual, the table below presents the output data for these sectors since April, 2018, with the data for manufacturing overall used as a control group.

                                              April thru May      April thru June       April thru July

overall manufacturing:          -0.20 percent        +0.36 percent             0 percent

durables manufacturing:       +0.96 percent        +1.47 percent        +1.23 percent

fabricated metals products:  +1.34 percent         +1.89 percent        +0.95 percent

machinery:                            +0.86 percent        +0.57 percent         -0.57 percent

automotive:                           -1.88 percent         +0.60 percent        +0.43 percent

major appliances:                  -2.00 percent          -4.47 percent        -5.99 percent

aircraft and parts:                 +0.73 percent         +2.46 percent        +4.23 percent

These figures show that for three of the five major metals-using sectors tracked (fabricated metals products, machinery, and major appliances), constant dollar output has worsened compared with such production in manufacturing as a whole. Relative performance for automotive and aircraft and parts, however, has improved – as it has for the durable goods super-sector in which the metals users are located.

Keep in mind also that results for the major appliance sector also remain affected by a separate set of product-specific levies on large household laundry equipment that began in February, 2018.

In contrast with the metals tariffs, the first full month for China tariffs of any kind was August, 2018, and the set of goods involved was relatively small. Complicating matters further is the U.S. Trade Representative’s office’s practice of listing the dutied products according to a classification scheme that differs significantly from that used by the rest of the U.S. government to monitor most major indicators of economic performance – including industrial production.

And as previously noted, most of the Made in China products tariff-ed so far have been intermediate goods (parts, components, materials, etc.) whose use by American manufacturers varies widely. Therefore, the impact of tariffs on these products undoubtedly varies widely, too. Moreover, the number of Chinese goods facing tariffs has increased dramatically since last August. Not only were the levies extended to an additional $200 billion worth of such imports from China in late September, 2018, but these duties were raised from ten percent to 25 percent in May, 2019. (See this time-line for the specifics.)

All the same, here are results for a handful of sectors reasonably certain to have faced tariff pressure since last August. Each column measuring real output changes since last August.

                                         August thru May     August thru June     August thru July

overall manufacturing:     -1.09 percent            -0.55 percent           -0.90 percent

ball bearings:                    -2.20 percent            -2.46 percent           -2.27 percent

industrial heating equip:   -4.11 percent            -5.16 percent           -5.21 percent

farm machinery & equip: -7.51 percent            -6.53 percent           -6.91 percent

oil/gas drilling platform: +4.03 percent            +2.22 percent           -0.17 percent      parts

A greater percentage of these sectors (three of four) generated worse performance versus manufacturing overall than was the case for the metals-using sectors. But the sample size is so small, and the the uncertainties so considerable, that these more downbeat results should still be viewed with the utmost caution. Ditto for claims that the Trump tariffs are killing U.S. manufacturing.