The Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT), announced last week that U.S. manufacturing technology orders for December totaled $499.43 million. This figure represents a 17.8% increase from November pushing annual sales up to over $5.7 billion, which is the best year since 1996 and largest increase in 13 years.
This is bad news for the “Recovery Deniers” whose raison d’être is blasting President Obama over the economy. They ignore any signs that the recovery is underway usually saying the opposite of all new data released.
“Finishing 2012 with the highest order total in 13 years certainly confirms the renaissance of U.S. manufacturing,” said Douglas K. Woods, AMT President in a release. “This also shows the resilience of the industry in the face of GDP contraction in the fourth quarter, along with fiscal and political concerns that have been overshadowing much of the general economy.”
The United States Manufacturing Technology Orders (USMTO) report, compiled by the trade association representing the production and distribution of manufacturing technology, provides regional and national U.S. orders data of domestic and imported machine tools and related equipment.
According to the AMT release manufacturing technology orders provides a reliable leading economic indicator as manufacturing industries invest in capital metalworking equipment to increase capacity and improve productivity.
The report breaks the data down by region. All regions showed an increase except the Northeast.
Northeast Region: Northeast Region manufacturing technology orders in December stood at $74.02 million, up 10.1% from the November total of $67.24 million but down 25.0% when compared with December 2011. The $789.38 million year-end total was 9.0% less than the total for 2011.
Southern Region: Manufacturing technology orders in the Southern Region in December totaled $78.11 million, up 19.1% from November’s $65.58 million but down 12.4% when compared with December 2011. At $835.28 million, 2012 was up 12.2% when compared with 2011.
Midwest Region: Midwest Region manufacturing technology orders totaled $166.19 million in December, a rise of 27.3% when compared with November’s $130.54 million but 9.7% less than the total for December 2011. The year-end total of $1,814.51 is 1.0% more than the comparable figure for 2011.
Central Region: At $125.05 million, December manufacturing technology orders in the Central Region were up 14.6% when compared with the $109.10 million total for November but down 1.2% when compared with December a year ago. With a year-end total of $1,586.85 million, 2012 was up 4.7% when compared with 2011.
Western Region: December manufacturing technology orders in the Western Region totaled $56.06 million, up 8.6% from November’s $51.62 million and up 6.8% when compared with the December 2011 total. At $679.56 million, the 2012 total was 6.9% more than the comparable figure for 2011.
Despite the entire political clap trap, manufacturing has surged under the Obama Administration. Over 500,000 manufacturing jobs have been creates in the last four years. At his State of the Union Address the president announced that jobs are coming back to the U.S. after two decades of outsourcing. The president refers to this as “on shoring” and said Apple will begin manufacturing MACS in America again.
The increase in new technology orders bode well for future manufacturing growth.
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