Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey
Texas Manufacturing Activity Picks Up
For this month’s survey, Texas business executives were asked supplemental questions on the impact of COVID-19. Results for these questions from the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey, Texas Service Sector Outlook Survey and Texas Retail Outlook Survey have been released together. Read the special questions results.
Texas factory activity expanded at a markedly faster pace in February, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, surged 15 points to 19.9, indicating a sharp acceleration in output growth.
Other measures of manufacturing activity also point to more rapid growth this month. The new orders index rose seven points to 13.0, and the growth rate of orders index rose six points to 11.6. The capacity utilization index pushed up from 9.2 to 16.5, and the shipments index edged up three points to 16.1.
Perceptions of broader business conditions continued to improve in February. The general business activity index shot up 10 points to 17.2. The company outlook index held steady at 10.7, an above-average reading. Uncertainty regarding companies’ outlooks continued to rise, though the index retreated notably, from 19.3 to 8.5.
Labor market measures indicated robust but slightly slower growth in employment and work hours. The employment index came in at 12.7, down from 16.6 but still indicative of increased head counts. Twenty-one percent of firms noted net hiring, while 8 percent noted net layoffs. The hours worked index inched down to 11.3.
Price pressures rose while wage pressures held mostly steady in February. The raw materials prices index edged up to a 10-year high of 57.4 amid widespread reports of supply-chain disruptions driving up costs. The finished goods prices index climbed nine points to 23.0. The wages and benefits index was largely unchanged at 16.1.
Expectations regarding future manufacturing activity remained positive in February, though some key indexes weakened slightly from their January readings. The future production index ticked down from 43.7 to 40.2, but the future general business activity index moved up four points to 33.9. Most other measures of future manufacturing activity edged down but remained solidly in positive territory.
Next release: Monday, March 29
Data were collected Feb. 9–17, and 96 Texas manufacturers responded to the survey. The Dallas Fed conducts the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey monthly to obtain a timely assessment of the state’s factory activity. Firms are asked whether output, employment, orders, prices and other indicators increased, decreased or remained unchanged over the previous month.
Survey responses are used to calculate an index for each indicator. Each index is calculated by subtracting the percentage of respondents reporting a decrease from the percentage reporting an increase. When the share of firms reporting an increase exceeds the share reporting a decrease, the index will be greater than zero, suggesting the indicator has increased over the prior month. If the share of firms reporting a decrease exceeds the share reporting an increase, the index will be below zero, suggesting the indicator has decreased over the prior month. An index will be zero when the number of firms reporting an increase is equal to the number of firms reporting a decrease. Data have been seasonally adjusted as necessary.
Results Summary
Historical data are available from June 2004 to the most current release month.
Business Indicators Relating to Facilities and Products in Texas Current (versus previous month) | ||||||||
Indicator | Feb Index | Jan Index | Change | Series Average | Trend* | % Reporting Increase | % Reporting No Change | % Reporting Decrease |
Production | 19.9 | 4.6 | +15.3 | 10.0 | 9(+) | 36.3 | 47.2 | 16.4 |
Capacity Utilization | 16.5 | 9.2 | +7.3 | 7.7 | 9(+) | 30.8 | 54.9 | 14.3 |
New Orders | 13.0 | 6.3 | +6.7 | 5.9 | 9(+) | 31.5 | 50.0 | 18.5 |
Growth Rate of Orders | 11.6 | 5.9 | +5.7 | –0.2 | 8(+) | 28.2 | 55.2 | 16.6 |
Unfilled Orders | 12.4 | 5.7 | +6.7 | –2.7 | 8(+) | 20.8 | 70.8 | 8.4 |
Shipments | 16.1 | 13.5 | +2.6 | 8.8 | 9(+) | 32.7 | 50.7 | 16.6 |
Delivery Time | 9.5 | 9.2 | +0.3 | –0.3 | 8(+) | 18.9 | 71.7 | 9.4 |
Finished Goods Inventories | –12.8 | –9.3 | –3.5 | –3.4 | 23(–) | 7.4 | 72.3 | 20.2 |
Prices Paid for Raw Materials | 57.4 | 55.0 | +2.4 | 24.5 | 10(+) | 59.3 | 38.8 | 1.9 |
Prices Received for Finished Goods | 23.0 | 13.9 | +9.1 | 6.1 | 7(+) | 25.5 | 72.0 | 2.5 |
Wages and Benefits | 16.1 | 17.6 | –1.5 | 18.3 | 10(+) | 17.0 | 82.1 | 0.9 |
Employment | 12.7 | 16.6 | –3.9 | 6.3 | 8(+) | 20.6 | 71.5 | 7.9 |
Hours Worked | 11.3 | 12.6 | –1.3 | 2.5 | 8(+) | 21.8 | 67.7 | 10.5 |
Capital Expenditures | 13.7 | 12.1 | +1.6 | 6.2 | 7(+) | 21.7 | 70.3 | 8.0 |
General Business Conditions Current (versus previous month) | ||||||||
Indicator | Feb Index | Jan Index | Change | Series Average | Trend** | % Reporting Improved | % Reporting No Change | % Reporting Worsened |
Company Outlook | 10.7 | 10.3 | +0.4 | 6.5 | 9(+) | 24.4 | 61.9 | 13.7 |
General Business Activity | 17.2 | 7.0 | +10.2 | 2.2 | 7(+) | 29.0 | 59.2 | 11.8 |
Indicator | Feb Index | Jan Index | Change | Series Average | Trend* | % Reporting Increase | % Reporting No Change | % Reporting Decrease |
Outlook Uncertainty† | 8.5 | 19.3 | –10.8 | 13.0 | 33(+) | 24.5 | 59.6 | 16.0 |
Business Indicators Relating to Facilities and Products in Texas Future (six months ahead) | ||||||||
Indicator | Feb Index | Jan Index | Change | Series Average | Trend* | % Reporting Increase | % Reporting No Change | % Reporting Decrease |
Production | 40.2 | 43.7 | –3.5 | 38.3 | 10(+) | 51.8 | 36.6 | 11.6 |
Capacity Utilization | 37.1 | 44.2 | –7.1 | 35.1 | 10(+) | 46.5 | 44.0 | 9.4 |
New Orders | 32.3 | 40.1 | –7.8 | 36.0 | 10(+) | 44.6 | 43.1 | 12.3 |
Growth Rate of Orders | 25.8 | 29.8 | –4.0 | 26.7 | 10(+) | 37.3 | 51.2 | 11.5 |
Unfilled Orders | 4.5 | 4.0 | +0.5 | 3.9 | 9(+) | 15.5 | 73.5 | 11.0 |
Shipments | 36.0 | 40.9 | –4.9 | 36.8 | 10(+) | 47.4 | 41.2 | 11.4 |
Delivery Time | 5.9 | –0.3 | +6.2 | –1.5 | 1(+) | 15.6 | 74.7 | 9.7 |
Finished Goods Inventories | 11.5 | 4.0 | +7.5 | –0.3 | 4(+) | 18.4 | 74.7 | 6.9 |
Prices Paid for Raw Materials | 52.9 | 53.9 | –1.0 | 33.4 | 11(+) | 59.8 | 33.3 | 6.9 |
Prices Received for Finished Goods | 44.9 | 41.2 | +3.7 | 19.3 | 10(+) | 48.3 | 48.3 | 3.4 |
Wages and Benefits | 52.1 | 48.3 | +3.8 | 37.7 | 10(+) | 53.2 | 45.7 | 1.1 |
Employment | 30.8 | 31.9 | –1.1 | 21.9 | 9(+) | 39.0 | 52.8 | 8.2 |
Hours Worked | 11.0 | 17.2 | –6.2 | 9.3 | 10(+) | 21.5 | 68.0 | 10.5 |
Capital Expenditures | 22.8 | 26.2 | –3.4 | 19.6 | 9(+) | 30.2 | 62.4 | 7.4 |
General Business Conditions Future (six months ahead) | ||||||||
Indicator | Feb Index | Jan Index | Change | Series Average | Trend** | % Reporting Increase | % Reporting No Change | % Reporting Worsened |
Company Outlook | 32.3 | 27.7 | +4.6 | 20.5 | 9(+) | 42.3 | 47.8 | 10.0 |
General Business Activity | 33.9 | 29.6 | +4.3 | 14.2 | 9(+) | 45.9 | 42.1 | 12.0 |
*Shown is the number of consecutive months of expansion or contraction in the underlying indicator. Expansion is indicated by a positive index reading and denoted by a (+) in the table. Contraction is indicated by a negative index reading and denoted by a (–) in the table.
**Shown is the number of consecutive months of improvement or worsening in the underlying indicator. Improvement is indicated by a positive index reading and denoted by a (+) in the table. Worsening is indicated by a negative index reading and denoted by a (–) in the table.
†Added to survey in January 2018.
Data have been seasonally adjusted as necessary, with the exception of the outlook uncertainty index, which does not yet have a sufficiently long time series to test for seasonality.
Production Index
Comments from Survey Respondents
These comments are from respondents’ completed surveys and have been edited for publication.
- The change of administration and negative bent toward the oil and gas industry are issues affecting our business.
- Right now, some answers are probably skewed with the issues of the winter storm. Our facility is completely shut down, and we’ll work on restart planning as soon as the storm passes. Damage from the storm will hamper the restart and affect customer orders. The natural gas shortage and curtailment situation must improve for restart. Electrical grid concerns with ice moving into the region is a huge issue and could impact supply.
- The regulatory impact of the Biden administration is unknown at this time. This is the cause of the uncertainty.
- Consistency of the available workforce is hurt by the need to quarantine because of family exposure to COVID-19. Thank goodness for our early cross-training of personnel.
- COVID-related employee absences and quarantines are impacting output and increasing order backlog and delivery dates. In the restaurant and hospitality segments, orders and increasing interest are stimulated by the second-round PPP [Paycheck Protection Program] and SBA [Small Business Administration] funding to customers for outdoor venue expansions. Retail projects deferred from last year’s start are moving forward. Bad debt and slow payments are escalating within certain market segments.
- A $15 minimum wage would kill our small business. We are producing a lot, but cash flow is slow because our customers cannot pay us.
- We finally received some work, but one month does not a year make. We are still very pessimistic on the future, especially in the energy sector we depend on, under Biden's regressive policies.
- We are still waiting on oil and gas production to open up and stabilize. There is a sluggishness that is likely in part due to working through surplus excess equipment and uncertainty of the future that is slowing the restart of the industry in the U.S.
- We had a record year last year, and we should blow it away this year. The electronics and medical sectors are booming.
- Customers are once again requesting quotes at a rate much higher than what we have seen over the past 12 months. This is a very good indicator for future business. Generally, quotes turn into orders within 60–90 days. We also expect that the size of the order will be greater based on the requested quotes.
- Early signs point to February being better than January for revenue. We still believe there will be a second-half-of-the-year recovery for premises-based equipment sales.
- Production is down only because of a supplier problem; otherwise it would be great.
- Price increases are due to disruption of the supply chain and COVID-19 inefficiencies. The negative outlook for oil and gas affects our industry. Runaway government spending is expected to fuel inflation.
- We are very surprised about the weakness of the grid and other infrastructure revealed by the current meteorological event. We will need to understand what will be done to address this for future significant and unusual events.
- Corrugated packaging is currently experiencing a paper shortage that is affecting production and sales.
- The influence of COVID-19 has normalized itself. As vaccinations increase, we expect to see increases in volume from certain market segments and decreases in others. The net effect will be a slight increase. Demand and production of packaging for consumer packaged goods (food) as well as for institutional use (schools, hotels, restaurants) have been strong throughout the pandemic.
- Even though we continue to be very slow as compared to a year ago, February will be a much better billing month than January, and we are hopeful things will soon start to improve. Having access to PPP 2.0 monies will be a huge benefit to our workers, who otherwise would be almost guaranteed of working reduced hours and getting paid only for the hours worked. Now we will be able to pay them for more than we would have otherwise due to low activity levels.
- Weather and the Texas electric grid issues have depressed February.
Historical Data
Historical data can be downloaded dating back to June 2004.
Indexes
Download indexes for all indicators. For the definitions of all variables, see Data Definitions.
Unadjusted |
Seasonally adjusted |
All Data
Download indexes and components of the indexes (percentage of respondents reporting increase, decrease, or no change). For the definitions of all variables, see Data Definitions.
Unadjusted |
Seasonally adjusted |
Questions regarding the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey can be addressed to Emily Kerr at emily.kerr@dal.frb.org.
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