Other recent surveys of the manufacturing market offer insights into areas that MA does not track, such as gross domestic product (GDP) trends and production levels. Other polls also measure confidence levels as well as hiring intentions. Here are some of their findings:
- U.S. GDP will grow at a 2.4% average rate in 2010 and a 3.5% rate in 2011, predicts the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI in its November Quarterly Economic Forecast. That will follow a 2.5% U.S. GDP decline in 2009, according to MAPI, a non-profit economic policy and research firm. In the United States, manufacturing production is expected to grow at a 4.6% rate in 2010, significantly faster than the economy overall, according to MAPI. That will follow an expected 11.3% decline in manufacturing production in 2009.
- ThomasNet’s Industry Market Barometer, a survey of 800 managers, executives, and engineers in October, shows that 76% believe the U.S. economy will improve by the second quarter, and 35% expect their own business to grow by the end of the year.
- In its third quarter 2009 Manufacturing Barometer, based on interviews with 60 senior executives at large, multi-national U.S. industrial companies, PricewaterhouseCoopers says 48% are optimistic and only 13% pessimistic about the U.S. economy’s prospects in 2010, compared with 66% who were pessimistic in the prior year’s third-quarter study. Over the next 12 months, 25% plan to add workers (almost identical to the MA poll’s 25.6% finding), up 8 points from PWC’s second-quarter Barometer and more than double the 12% who said so a year ago.
- The Institute for Supply Management says 60% of U.S. manufacturers surveyed expect a 5.7% increase in 2010 revenue, compared with a 10.7% drop in 2009.