Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey

Results summary

Historical data are available from June 2004 to the most current release month.

*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.

Data have been seasonally adjusted as necessary.

Comments from survey respondents

Survey participants are given the opportunity to submit comments on current issues that may be affecting their businesses. Some comments have been edited for grammar and clarity.

• Increased gasoline prices create a burden on the consumer that we think can have a negative impact on spending on craft beer. We thought fuel prices were on the way down but now they are back up. This creates a certain amount of uncertainty going forward.

• Our projected production increases, employee headcount and business improvements are based on a verbal commitment that we will soon receive a large, new contract from a German customer.
• June was a very high month for us, but July is more normal. The war in Iran is impacting us in unexpected ways. Printed circuit board (PCB) pricing is unstable now because Iran attacked a facility in Saudi Arabia that produces a large amount of the global supply of a material used in the manufacturing process. We expected higher fuel costs to filter through but did not anticipate PCBs to be impacted in this way.
• We are in a holding pattern but we continue to service existing customers

• Lower demand is projected in the second half, but still strong.
• Geopolitical and national political uncertainty, combined with inflation, undermines consumer and business confidence. People and businesses are sitting on the sidelines.
• We will close our 1951-2026 business due to lack of demand.

• We are a coffee-based business, so summers are typically slower. But we are up on a year-over-year basis.

• We’re still getting steady orders while having to increase prices due to raw material cost escalation. Maybe someday everything will settle down and be more predictable.
• We see a very strong oil-based economy that will be with us for many years. We are losing competitors. Therefore, we are able to raise our prices but not increase our product costs. We’re investing in new machines that will increase our production but overall reduce our cost of manufacturing. However, we will not reduce our labor force, but productivity will increase substantially. We’ve been falling behind in maintaining our levels of finished products, but these new investments will solve those problems over the next six months.
• This is our third straight month of sales below average.
• The backlog is continuing to grow, and business is good in every respect for our operation.
• Customer concentration in the oil and gas industry is increasing buying power and forcing more competitive pricing and faster delivery.

• Older consumers are feeling the pressure of inflation.

• We are busy now because of large jobs we knew were coming, plus one large new project that has promise to become a very good ongoing job. Other than that, our customer base has become slow and anemic and now things are getting even more messed up overseas. It gives me plenty of reasons to be pessimistic going into the rest of this year.
• War is causing dramatic economic slowdown.
• Tariffs and the war continue to cause uncertainty and compress margins.

• We've seen an uptick in activity, orders and production. We also formalized and implemented our first price increase in 5 years to counter the rising product, wage and business costs. There was no pushback or negative feedback from customers—this was something they've experienced with other companies and understood.

• Too much noise in the economy and high interest rates make planning or taking risks difficult.

Special questions

For this month’s survey, Texas business executives were asked supplemental questions on labor market conditions. Results below include responses from participants from both the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey and Texas Service Sector Outlook Survey. View individual survey results.