The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported Thursday that its Empire State Manufacturing Survey general business-conditions index climbed nearly 18 points to 19.0, its highest level in nearly four years.
That easily surpassed the reading of about 5.0 that analysts were expecting, according to Yahoo Finance data.
The May index comes “on the heels of a rather weak reading of just 1.3 in April,” the New York Fed said in a news release.
About 37 percent of respondents reported that conditions had improved in the last month, while just 18 percent indicated that conditions had worsened, according to the release.
The new orders and shipments indexes also posted “sharp” gains, rising to 10.4 and 17.4, respectively.
The unfilled-orders index rose to a level close to zero, the New York Fed said.
Price indexes were “slightly lower,” suggesting a small degree of slowing in price increases, according to the news release. The prices-paid index fell three points to 19.8 and the prices-received index decreased four points to 6.6.
Employment expanded “significantly,” although the average-workweek index held steady at 2.2 and the index for number of employees rose 13 points to 20.9.
Indexes for the six-month outlook suggested that New York manufacturers were “highly optimistic,” with the future general business-conditions index rising to 44, its highest level in more than two years.
The New York Fed distributes the Empire State Manufacturing Surveyon 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