With Best Sales in 14 Years, Manufacturers Ready to Build on 2017 Success

For manufacturers, the good news just keeps coming. A new report found that in December, new manufacturing orders increased at the fastest rate since January 2004. On that measure, then, December 2017 was manufacturers’ best month in almost 14 years.

The data come from the Institute for Supply Management. Our chief economist at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), Chad Moutray, broke down the numbers for us: “It was the seventh consecutive month that the sales measure has exceeded 60, which would signify very spirited growth in demand. In addition, exports (up from 56.0 to 58.5) also experienced strong growth in December.”

The bottom line is manufacturers are feeling good and doing well.

This is not a coincidence, though. It’s a result of big policy changes coming from Washington—and the strong support for the manufacturing agenda we saw over the past year.

Every quarter, the NAM polls our members in our Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey. In 2017, the responses broke records for the levels of optimism.

In fact, the percentage of manufacturers saying they have a positive outlook for their business was the highest in the survey’s 20-year history. In the fourth quarter of 2017, 94.6 percent of respondents felt positive about the future. In 2016, that percentage ranged from 56.6 to 77.8. That’s a huge change.

Since early last year, President Donald Trump and leaders in Congress worked to provide significant relief to manufacturers from regulations that were costly or threatened our competitiveness. That gave manufacturers the confidence to hire more and invest in their companies.

Then came tax reform—an incredible boost for the industry and a big win for manufacturing workers. The promise of tax reform fueled confidence throughout the year. It makes us tremendously more competitive, and now, as we’re already seeing, it’s empowering manufacturers large and small to support employees and expand their operations.

So, there’s certainly more good news to come in 2018. But to really keep up the momentum, manufacturers want to see a few more things from Washington. We want to see a big investment in our infrastructure. It’s harder to get products to customers when our roads and bridges are crumbling or our ports are clogged or our energy infrastructure cannot keep up with demand.

We also want to see a focus on workforce training, trade expansion and additional regulatory reforms. If we get those things done, we can keep setting new records and delivering more good news for manufacturing workers and the American people.