Manufacturing Recession Goes Global as Demand Withers

[marmar]

Manufacturing Recession Goes Global as Demand Withers
by Wolf Richter • May 24, 2016


The “strong dollar” has been blamed for the manufacturing doldrums in the US that started over a year ago. But then manufacturing in other countries should boom, or at least not decline, but that’s not the case. Manufacturing is sick and weakening in just about every major economy!

References to 2009 and the Global Financial Crisis keep popping up in the latest spate of reports because that’s how bad it has gotten.

[font color="blue"]US manufacturing gets ugly.[/font]

On Monday, Markit reported that its US Manufacturing PMI, which tracks the overall health of the manufacturing sector via surveys sent to purchasing managers, dropped to 50.5 (below 50 = contraction) in May, the weakest reading since October 2009.

Production actually declined for the first time since September 2009, “the height of the Global Financial Crisis.” Companies blamed “reduced foreign demand” as new export orders fell for the second month in a row. And they blamed the “uncertainty around the general economic outlook” which had caused their customers “to delay spending decisions,” which then triggered production cuts.

Backlog of work fell for the fourth month in a row, at the same rate as in April, which had been a “post-recession record,” which means that companies “will be poised to cut capacity unless inflows of new work start to pick up again.” ..............(more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2016/05/24/manufacturing-recession-goes-global-as-demand-withers/