Ginni Cooper serves as the manufacturing partner to MHA. She comments on today's manufacturing PMI modest increase and how trade deals have effected the sector.
The rather modest increase in PMI today is another signal of how tough the last six months have been for the sector.
Since the PMI dipped below 50 in November last year companies have been focused on survival mode and the appetite and willingness of corporate boards and business owners to invest has been limited.
The recent announcements on trade deals with India, the US and the EU have been broadly welcomed by our clients and the news last week of a new programme of foundation-level apprenticeships sounds promising but the sector is still crying out for stability and the chance to do some long-term planning.
With the confidence their world is not going to be turned upside down by dramatic noises off from London or Washington.
While manufacturers and their owners are by nature resilient and thankfully there has been little sign of companies going to the wall, the sector is very much still bumping along the bottom.
The painful increases in employment costs are now baked into cashflow forecasts so some certainty (albeit negative) has now returned to manufacturing and if you are glass half full optimist, you could say it won’t get any worse, but it remains rather a depressing outlook overall.
