European Industrial Production, November 2023: The data for Europe released by Eurostat has Industrial Production (IP) as the top-level aggregate; while the largest part of this is the manufacturing sector, it also includes energy and utilities (but not construction) and the breakdown of the total by sector misses out having a figure for manufacturing.
Total IP fell in November (compared to October) by -0.2% for the EU and by -0.3% in the Euro-zone; this means that output in the EU was -5.8% lower than in November 2022, with a reduction of -6.8% for the Euro-zone. We can calculate the 3-month rolling trends from the monthly indices published by Eurostat – in the latest 3 months (September, October & November) total IP fell by -1.2% compared to the previous period (June, July & August) for the EU and by -1.5% in the Euro-zone.
Within the total, the sub-set of the capital goods industries saw a month-on-month fall in output of -0.8% for both the EU and the Euro-zone. Compared to November 2022, this means that output of this group declined by -8.7% in the EU and -10.3% in the Euro-zone; in both cases on this comparison, this was the weakest of the sub-divisions of IP.
Staying with the 12-month trends, of the 26 Member States who have published the data (Cyprus currently has a derogation to publish later), output rose in 8 with Denmark (+14.4%), Croatia (+4.8%) and Sweden (+3.4%) having the fastest growth rates; of the 18 countries with a decline in total IP, the largest percentage declines were in Ireland (-30.4% but this is often volatile due to the presence of multi-national companies headquarters), Belgium (-11.6%) and Bulgaria (-10.9%). Among the large EU economies, total IP declined in the Netherlands (-10.3%), Germany (-4.9%), Italy and Poland (both -3.1%) but increased in Spain (+1.1%) and France (+0.7%).
You can get the full details from the Eurostat News Release which can be downloaded from their website at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/news/euro-indicators (15 January) or requested from MTA.
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USMTO and CTMR, November 2023: The US Manufacturing Technology Orders (USMTO) programme tracks orders in the US market, based on the reports from participants; in the first eleven months of 2023 (January to November) total orders are -13.3% lower than the level in the same months of 2022. Despite this fall in the cumulative total of orders, it is worth noting that the values are still relatively high by historical standards.
The AMT Press Release on these results points to a fall in orders compared to October from contract machine shops was more or less balanced by increases from the aerospace and electrical equipment industries.
The regional breakdown of the data shows a continued contrast in fortunes with the South-Central (-1%), North-East (-2%) and North-Central-East (-9%) having relatively modest fall in business compared to 2022; for the first two of these, it is the importance of the aerospace sector that has helped maintain orders levels, with the South-Central region also benefitting from the automotive industry. In contrast, the North-Central-West, South-East (both -15%) and West (-32%) areas have seen more substantial falls in business.
The US Cutting Tool Market Report (CTMR) tracks the tooling business on a similar basis with the first eleven months of 2023 seeing growth of +7.5% compared to the same months of last year. There is no regional breakdown of this market but the press release announcing the latest figures notes that the aerospace and automotive industries are still working on both extensive backlogs and sales.
You can download the press releases for the two surveys from the AMT web-site at www.amtonline.org/topic/intelligence, with the CTMR release also published on the USCTI web-site at www.uscti.com; alternatively, you can request either or both releases from MTA and we can make sure you get them when they are published each month.