Empire Manufacturing Survey: State’s business conditions flat in December

The latest Empire State Manufacturing Survey indicates that manufacturing conditions were “flat” for New York manufacturers in December.

The general business-conditions index rose three points but, at 1.0, indicated that activity “changed little” over the month, according to the monthly survey that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released today.

The new-orders index inched up, but remained negative at -3.5, while the shipments index increased to 7.7, the survey found.

The unfilled-orders index fell to -24.1, and the inventories index declined 20 points to -21.7. Both indexes reached their lowest levels since 2009, the New York Fed said.

The prices-paid index was little changed at 15.7, and the prices-received index climbed to 3.6, the survey found.

Labor-market conditions remained “weak,” with the index for number of employees holding at 0 for a second consecutive month. The average-workweek index fell six points to -10.8, the New York Fed said.

Indexes for the six-month outlook generally conveyed a “fair degree of optimism” about future conditions, although not as much as the November survey, according to the New York Fed.

This month’s supplementary questions asked manufacturers to assess how much of a problem certain business issues were for their firms and whether they expected the issues to become more or less of a problem in the year ahead.

As in earlier surveys, manufacturers cited “most frequently, by far,” the cost of employee benefits as a “major problem,” according to the New York Fed.

Fully 80 percent of respondents expected that this issue would become even more of a problem a year from now.

Companies also cited the recruitment of qualified workers as their second biggest problem, the survey found. That issue produced “a considerably larger degree of concern than in earlier surveys,” according to the survey report.

The New York Fed distributes the Empire State Manufacturing Survey on the first day of each month to the same pool of about 200 manufacturing executives in New York. On average, about 100 executives return responses, it says.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com