Metalworking Activity Contraction Slows Slightly in January

The Gardner Business Index for Metalworking closed at 48.6 in January compared to 47.4 in December. Most components held steady, but new orders and exports showed ever-so-slight slowing of contraction. Backlog contracted faster again in January, which may be the case until new orders pick up the pace and grow. Production activity paralleled backlog, contracting faster again in January, but maintaining a lower level of contraction.

Employment activity has been threatening to contract for multiple months, coming in essentially flat in January. Reduced hiring needs may be more of a driver of slowed employment activity that, in recent months, has been more a function of an insufficient job seeker pool. Supplier deliveries continued to lengthen more slowly in January, which has been the case for over a year, with no visibility to any ‘normal’ drivers changing the trend near term. ‘Future business,’ a sentiment metric not included in GBI, grew faster in January like it started to in December.