MAPI — Manufacturers Alliance News and Reports —U.S. Trade Deficit, European Recovery, and More

Issues in the Brief

The Robot Revolution
Robots are advancing in capacity and use but will really take off when their power to generalize knowledge becomes a reality.

U.S. Trade Deficit in Manufactures Soars in August
Ernie Preeg, senior adviser for international trade and finance, analyzes the international trade statistics for August. He estimates the rise in the deficit amounts to a trade-related loss of approximately 400,000 American manufacturing jobs thus far in 2015.

Multiple Speeds in Europe’s Recovery
Regional growth differences persist in Europe, although they are now more pronounced in industrial sectors than in the economy as a whole. Three groups of countries populate the distribution of GDP: a large cluster of emerging economies—the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, and half a dozen other countries—are growing at rates above 3% (the first three are growing faster than 4%).

Economic Update

U.S. Industrial Outlook, September 2015
Manufacturing industrial production rose at a 1.2% annual rate in the second quarter of 2015—a meager recovery from the weather-depressed 0.7% decline in the first quarter.

Manufacturing Activity: September 2015
In this video, Don notes that overall manufacturing production in the United States is bouncing up and down from month to month. In August, the automobile industry suffered the biggest drop in production and the overall sector lost 17,000 jobs — the first employment decline in two years.

European Economic Outlook: Manufacturing Recovery Stalls but Consumers Earn More, Spend More
Europe’s recovery may be slow, but production of consumer goods is accelerating. Within manufacturing, employment, hours worked and gross wages are all increasing. Meanwhile, consumer confidence is showing weakness and capital formation has stalled amid fears of instability.