The Economy

ISM: U.S. Manufacturing Slips In March, Non-Manufacturing Rises

April 1, 2005

A closely watched indicator of economic activity shows U.S. manufacturing slowing further in March, consistent with some economists' belief that the nation's overall economy was growing less rapidly as the first calendar quarter of 2005 came to an end. ...

John McClenahen

Although the manufacturing sector of the economy continued to grow for the twenty-second month, the Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) manufacturing activity index slipped to 55.2% in March, one-tenth of a percentage point lower than February's 55.3%.

An index figure above 50% indicates that manufacturing generally is growing; a number below 50% signals the sector is contracting.

In March, new orders in manufacturing actually were 1.3 percentage points higher than in February at 57.1%. But production slowed by two-tenths of a percentage point to 56.5% in March and employment fell 4.1 percentage points to 53.3%.

Meanwhile, the non-manufacturing sector of the economy fared much better. ISM's business activity index for the sector rose 3.3 percentage points in March to 63.1% from 59.8% in February. New orders increased half a percentage point. The "backlog of orders also increased at a substantially faster rate than in February, indicating the likelihood of coordinated strong business activity in the months ahead," says Ralph G. Kauffman, the chair of ISM's non-manufacturing business survey committee and coordinator of the supply chain management program at the University of Houston-Downtown. The backlog rose a full 5 percentage points in March to 56.5%.

About the Author

John McClenahen | Former Senior Editor, IndustryWeek

John S. McClenahen, is an occasional essayist on the Web site of IndustryWeek, the executive management publication from which he retired in 2006. He began his journalism career as a broadcast journalist at Westinghouse Broadcasting’s KYW in Cleveland, Ohio. In May 1967, he joined Penton Media Inc. in Cleveland and in September 1967 was transferred to Washington, DC, the base from which for nearly 40 years he wrote primarily about national and international economics and politics, and corporate social responsibility.

      McClenahen, a native of Ohio now residing in Maryland, is an award-winning writer and photographer. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently An Unexpected Poet (2013), and several books of photographs, including Black, White, and Shades of Grey (2014). He also is the author of a children’s book, Henry at His Beach (2014).

      His photograph “Provincetown: Fog Rising 2004” was selected for the Smithsonian Institution’s 2011 juried exhibition Artists at Work and displayed in the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from June until October 2011. Five of his photographs are in the collection of St. Lawrence University and displayed on campus in Canton, New York.

      John McClenahen’s essay “Incorporating America: Whitman in Context” was designated one of the five best works published in The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies during the twelve-year editorship of R. Barry Leavis of Rollins College. John McClenahen’s several journalism prizes include the coveted Jesse H. Neal Award. He also is the author of the commemorative poem “Upon 50 Years,” celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Wolfson College Cambridge, and appearing in “The Wolfson Review.”

      John McClenahen received a B.A. (English with a minor in government) from St. Lawrence University, an M.A., (English) from Western Reserve University, and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University, where he also pursued doctoral studies. At St. Lawrence University, he was elected to academic honor societies in English and government and to Omicron Delta Kappa, the University’s highest undergraduate honor. John McClenahen was a participant in the 32nd Annual Wharton Seminars for Journalists at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. During the Easter Term of the 1986 academic year, John McClenahen was the first American to hold a prestigious Press Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.

      John McClenahen has served on the Editorial Board of Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies and was co-founder and first editor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown. He has been a volunteer researcher on the William Steinway Diary Project at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and has been an assistant professorial lecturer at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.