There may be growing concern about a downturn in the economy in other sectors, but the latest Marquette-ISM Report on Manufacturing suggests strong growth in the southeastern Wisconsin manufacturing sector.
The report’s Milwaukee-area PMI for June came in at 58.39, up sharply from 51.96 in May and reversing a downward trend from the past three months. Any reading above 50 suggests the region’s manufacturing sector is growing.
At the same time, the report’s outlook for the next six months did decline. The outlook diffusion index, which attempts to balance positive and negative bias, declined from 50% to 42.3%. The shift was mostly driven by an increase in respondents expecting conditions to get worse from 30% to 38.5%. The percentage expecting conditions to remain the same dropped from 40% to 38.5% while those expecting improvement went from 30% to 23.1%.
The report’s indices for new orders, production, backlog and export all improved in the quarter.
Respondents pointed to many familiar issues in their qualitative comments, including challenges with inflation, higher oil prices, long lead times, and the war in Ukraine.
Despite the looming issues, respondents said there is wage competition for skilled labor and firms want to hire more employees. The blue collar employment index suggested growth while the white collar index remained declined from 45.1 to 40.7.
