Tenth District manufacturing activity was mostly unchanged, and expectations for future activity remained expansionary (Chart 1, Tables 1 & 2). Price increases for raw materials eased modestly this month, while finished product prices edged up slightly.
Factory Activity Was Mostly Unchanged
The month-over-month composite index was 1 in August, unchanged from 1 in July and up slightly from -2 in June (Tables 1 & 2). The composite index is an average of the production, new orders, employment, supplier delivery time, and raw materials inventory indexes. The durable manufacturing sector was mostly flat, while nondurable manufacturing activity declined slightly driven by printing activities and paper and chemical manufacturing. Most month-over month indexes were positive, except for the backlog of orders, new export orders, and inventories. Production ticked up from -3 to 0 and the employment index increased modestly from -11 to 0. Most year-over-year indexes were negative, but most were higher than last month. Production, backlogs, and employee workweek indexes increased slightly, while the employment index declined moderately. Expectations for future activity remained positive, with the composite index rising from 8 to 11, as firms anticipate an improvement in production and new orders.
Manufacturing Composite Indexes
Skip to data visualization table| Date | Vs. a Month Ago | Vs. a Year Ago |
|---|---|---|
| Aug-24 | -4 | -14 |
| Sep-24 | -8 | -17 |
| Oct-24 | -5 | -14 |
| Nov-24 | -4 | -18 |
| Dec-24 | -5 | -16 |
| Jan-25 | -5 | -9 |
| Feb-25 | -5 | -18 |
| Mar-25 | -2 | -7 |
| Apr-25 | -4 | -8 |
| May-25 | -3 | -5 |
| Jun-25 | -2 | -14 |
| Jul-25 | 1 | -5 |
| Aug-25 | 1 | -2 |
Special Questions
This month, contacts were asked special questions about changes in purchasing activity and product demand expectations. Approximately 36% of firms reported customers’ purchase volumes decreased slightly compared to last quarter, 9% reported a significant decrease, 17% reported no change, 34% reported a slight increase, and 3% reported a significant increase in purchase volumes. Compared to last quarter, over a third (34%) of firms reported customer purchases/services decreased slightly, 13% reported a significant decrease, 27% reported no change, 24% reported a slight increase, and 2% reported they increased significantly (Chart 2). For the remainder of 2025, almost half of firms (46%) expect demand for their products will be slightly higher than the prior quarter and 2% expect it will be significantly higher, 18% expect no change, while 22% expect it will be slightly lower, and 12% expect it will be significantly lower (Chart 3).
Selected Manufacturing Comments
“Business is better, although many of the things affecting us are singular opportunities to our capabilities and are not indicative of a broad-based improvement in the industrial economy. Agricultural and automotive products are still weak.”
“Uncertainty has been the most heard word to describe our machine manufacturing industry.”
“We will increase head count this quarter by 10 employees. Next quarter we will add 5 additional heads.”
“Taking much longer to be paid.”
“Demand is very sporadic. Some customer demand is up and some is down. There is no consistency or ability to easily predict. We deal with food, and overall retail demand on the discount side is higher than traditional. However, we are seeing a slight uptick across the board as it seems more people are eating at home. There is also softness in markets that deal with the food service, but this is a small part of our business.”
“Supply of raw material is down significantly YTD. If we had more supply, we could easily sell more at current higher prices.”
“There's just an overall slight drop off in orders for our products and the people who are ordering are being very cautious not to carry too much inventory.”
“Business has been very slow YTD.”