- Prior was 56.1
- Prices paid 78.5 vs. 81.0 estimate. Last month 82.2
- Employment 47.3 vs. 49.6 last month
- New orders 49.2vs. 55.1 last month
- Production 54.9 vs 54.2 last month
- Inventories 56.0 vs 55.9 last month
- Backlog of orders 53.2 vs 58.7 last month
- Full report
Selected comments:
- “Backlog is high, but incoming orders slowing this month.”
- “Ocean freight costs are finally beginning to fall a bit.”
- “Our suppliers are experiencing a softening of orders. We are still running at the same high level we did throughout 2021 and in early 2022.”
- “Business is still steady. Some customers are pushing orders out because they have too much inventory. We are able to backfill the pushed orders from customers that want theirs earlier, so we aren’t losing capacity.”
- “We are hearing from customers that their inventories are high, and sales are coming down. We expect orders to decline in the coming months until inventories are leveled properly against demand.”
- “Orders and production continue to be strong, but material availability is holding us back. Cannot run enough hours to eat into the backlog.”
There’s a bifurcation depending on the industry in these comments, with some seeing falling orders while others still running as fast as they can.