For factory workers trying to understand the next production schedule, January's new orders and shipments offered different signals. The Census Bureau's February 27, 2017 advance report put durable-goods orders up 1.8 percent, while shipments slipped 0.1 percent. A booking is not a completed shipment, and neither national measure tells a worker how many shifts an employer will offer. [CB 17-25 M3-1 (17)-01][CB 17-12 M3-1 (16)-12]

The earlier report, issued January 27, had described December orders falling 0.4 percent even as shipments rose 1.4 percent. February revised December's order decline to 0.8 percent and its shipment increase to 1.6 percent. Those are changing estimates from one Census survey, not independent confirmations. The opposite movements in the two months make a simple equation between more orders and more work especially unhelpful. [CB 17-25 M3-1 (17)-01][CB 17-12 M3-1 (16)-12]

January's increase was also uneven: transportation-equipment orders rose 6.0 percent, whereas orders outside transportation fell 0.2 percent. All these changes are seasonally adjusted dollar measures, not inflation-adjusted production volumes. Orders are net of cancellations and exclude semiconductor manufacturing. The survey cannot supply ordinary sampling-error confidence intervals, so a small movement should not be dressed up as a statistically established trend. [CB 17-25 M3-1 (17)-01][CB 17-12 M3-1 (16)-12]

Our labour-interest reading is to ask an employer which part of its own order book supports a proposed schedule, and when those orders are expected to reach production. That question leaves room for genuine additional work without promising it on the strength of an aggregate rebound. Establishment-level schedules and staffing evidence, absent from these releases, would be needed to assess who gains hours or bears uncertainty. [CB 17-25 M3-1 (17)-01][CB 17-12 M3-1 (16)-12]

Source documents

  1. Advance report on durable goods, January 2017https://www.census.gov/manufacturing/m3/historical_data/pressreleases/adv/2017/jan17adv.pdf
  2. Advance report on durable goods, December 2016https://www.census.gov/manufacturing/m3/historical_data/pressreleases/adv/2016/dec16adv.pdf