Economic Indicators Positive for Manufacturing

Economic indicators of manufacturing activity are still healthy overall and portend well for the balance of this year.

This report summarizes seven data sources that describe the state of manufacturing in the U.S. We have reported on most of these separately in our Steel Market Update publications, therefore will be brief in this summary.  We don’t expect these data sources to all point in the same direction. Our intention in summarizing them in one document is to provide a consensus of the state of this critical steel consumption sector. Based on AISI estimates of steel mill shipments by market classification, almost 50 percent of steel consumption in the U.S. is manufacturing oriented. This breaks down to about 27 percent being consumed in ground transportation, 9 percent in machinery and equipment, 5 percent in appliances, 4 percent in defense and about 4 percent in containers.