The Economy

Manufacturing Growth Slows In November

Dec. 1, 2005

Although the manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy grew for the 30th consecutive month in November, the pace was just a bit slower than in October, according to data released Dec. 1 by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) in Tempe, Ariz. The group's PMI index of manufacturing activity as at 58.1% last month, a percentage point down from 59.1% in October. An index figure above 50% indicates U.S. manufacturing generally is growing; a figure below 50% signals contraction.

New orders for manufactured goods continued to grow in November but more slowly than in October, with that component of the PMI slipping nearly two percentage points to 59.8% in November from 61.7% the previous month. The pace of production also grew more slowly, slipping to 60.6% in November from 62% in October. Prices that manufacturers pay for supplies continued to increase in November, but not nearly as fast as in October. That part of the PMI was down to 74% in November from 84% in October. Fifty-three percent of the supply executives ISM surveyed reported paying higher prices, 5% reported lower prices and 42% said prices were unchanged.

"While energy costs and supply interruptions remain a concern, purchasers are satisfied in general with current business conditions," said Norbert J. Ore, chair of ISM's manufacturing business survey committee.

"After voluntarily culling inventories in the summer and involuntarily shipping out inventories this fall because the hurricanes disrupted production, factories are scrambling to catch up with orders and to rebuild inventories," observes Daniel J. Meckstroth, chief economist at Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, an Arlington, Va.-based business and public policy research group.

About the Author

John McClenahen | Former Senior Editor, IndustryWeek

John S. McClenahen, is an occasional essayist on the Web site of IndustryWeek, the executive management publication from which he retired in 2006. He began his journalism career as a broadcast journalist at Westinghouse Broadcasting’s KYW in Cleveland, Ohio. In May 1967, he joined Penton Media Inc. in Cleveland and in September 1967 was transferred to Washington, DC, the base from which for nearly 40 years he wrote primarily about national and international economics and politics, and corporate social responsibility.

      McClenahen, a native of Ohio now residing in Maryland, is an award-winning writer and photographer. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently An Unexpected Poet (2013), and several books of photographs, including Black, White, and Shades of Grey (2014). He also is the author of a children’s book, Henry at His Beach (2014).

      His photograph “Provincetown: Fog Rising 2004” was selected for the Smithsonian Institution’s 2011 juried exhibition Artists at Work and displayed in the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from June until October 2011. Five of his photographs are in the collection of St. Lawrence University and displayed on campus in Canton, New York.

      John McClenahen’s essay “Incorporating America: Whitman in Context” was designated one of the five best works published in The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies during the twelve-year editorship of R. Barry Leavis of Rollins College. John McClenahen’s several journalism prizes include the coveted Jesse H. Neal Award. He also is the author of the commemorative poem “Upon 50 Years,” celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Wolfson College Cambridge, and appearing in “The Wolfson Review.”

      John McClenahen received a B.A. (English with a minor in government) from St. Lawrence University, an M.A., (English) from Western Reserve University, and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University, where he also pursued doctoral studies. At St. Lawrence University, he was elected to academic honor societies in English and government and to Omicron Delta Kappa, the University’s highest undergraduate honor. John McClenahen was a participant in the 32nd Annual Wharton Seminars for Journalists at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. During the Easter Term of the 1986 academic year, John McClenahen was the first American to hold a prestigious Press Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.

      John McClenahen has served on the Editorial Board of Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies and was co-founder and first editor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown. He has been a volunteer researcher on the William Steinway Diary Project at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and has been an assistant professorial lecturer at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.