TEMPE, Ariz.—The positive trend in the manufacturing sector continued in May, with the highlight being new orders, which reached its highest level since November of 2007.
May’s report, produced by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), showed new orders had risen to 51.1 percent, up 3.9 points over April’s numbers.
That’s good news both for the manufacturing sector and for the economy as a whole, said Norbert Ore, chair of ISM’s Manufacturing Business Survey Committee.
“New orders are considered the leading indicators of trends,” he said.
In addition, he said, customer inventories continued to drop, down 0.7 points to 32.9 percent, also a sign that new orders will continue to rise.
“Some of the supply chains that were absolutely stuffed with inventory are starting to work through that,” Ore said.
All this is reflected in the Purchasing Mangers Index (PMI), which has also continued its upward trend. The May report showed it was at 42.8 percent, up 2.7 points from April, a growth trend that has been steadily continuing since the beginning of this year.
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