March jobs report; February’s trade deficit, construction spending, factory inventories, and JOLTS, et al

Major monthly economic reports released during the past week included the Employment Situation Summary for March and the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for February, both from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Commerce Department​'s report on our International Trade for February, and the February report on Construction Spending and the Full Report on Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories and Orders for February, both from the Census Bureau…this week also saw the last regional Fed manufacturing survey for March: the Dallas Fed Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey, covering Texas and adjacent counties in northwest Louisiana and southeast New Mexico, reported their general business activity composite index fell to -16.3 in March, its lowest reading since last July, down from last month’s –8.3, thus indicating a more widespread deterioration of the Texas area economy than in February…

Privately issued reports released this week included the ADP Employment Report for March, wherein the payroll processor estimated that private payrolls increased by 155,000, the light vehicle sales report for March from Wards Automotive, which estimated that vehicles sold at a 17.77 million annual rate in March, the highest for any month in nearly four years, up from the 16.00 million annual sales rate in February, and up from the 15.49 million annual sales rate reported for March a year earlier, and both of the widely ​watched purchasing manager’s surveys from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM): the March Manufacturing Report On Business indicated that the manufacturing PMI (Purchasing Managers Index) fell to 49.0% in March, down from 50.3% in February, which suggests that a small plurality of manufacturing purchasing managers saw worse conditions during March for the first time in three months, while the March 2025 Services Report On Business reported their Services Index fell to 50.8%, down from 53.5% in February, indicating that a ​considerably smaller plurality of service industry purchasing managers reported expansion in various facets of their business in March…

Employers Added 228,000 Jobs in March, Unemployment Rate Ticked Up to 4.2%

The Employment Situation Summary for March reported a payroll job increase that was well above expectations, and that the unemployment rate and the labor force participation rate both rose 0.1% ….seasonally adjusted estimates extrapolated from the establishment survey data projected that employers added 228,000 jobs in March, after the previously estimated payroll job increase for January was revised was revised down by 14,000, from 125,000 to 111,000, while the payroll jobs increase for February was revised down by 34,000, from 151,000 to 117,000…so including those revisions, this report thus represents a total of 180,000 more seasonally adjusted payroll jobs than were reported last month, still more than the increase of 135,000 jobs that was expected…..the unadjusted data shows that there were actually 556,000 more payroll jobs extant in March than in February, as the usual seasonal job increases in sectors such as construction, administrative and waste services, and in leisure and hospitality were washed out by the seasonal adjustments…

Seasonally adjusted job increases in March were spread through both the goods producing and the service sectors and government, with only durable goods manufacturing showing a modest 3,000 job loss…since the BLS summary of the job gains by sector is clear and more detailed than our usual synopsis, we’ll just quote that summary here:

• Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 228,000 in March, higher than the average monthly gain of 158,000 over the prior 12 months. In March, job gains occurred in health care, in social assistance, and in transportation and warehousing. Employment also increased in retail trade, partially reflecting the return of workers from a strike. Federal government employment declined. (See table B-1.)
• Health care added 54,000 jobs in March, in line with the average monthly gain of 52,000 over the prior 12 months. Over the month, employment continued to trend up in ambulatory health care services (+20,000), hospitals (+17,000), and nursing and residential care facilities (+17,000).
• In March, employment in social assistance increased by 24,000, higher than the average monthly gain of 19,000 over the prior 12 months. Over the month, individual and family services added 22,000 jobs.
• Retail trade added 24,000 jobs in March, as workers returning from a strike contributed to a job gain in food and beverage retailers (+21,000). General merchandise retailers lost 5,000 jobs. Employment in retail trade changed little over the year.
• Employment in transportation and warehousing rose by 23,000 in March, about double the prior 12-month average gain of 12,000. In March, job gains in couriers and messengers (+16,000) and truck transportation (+10,000) were partially offset by a job loss in warehousing and storage (-9,000).
• Within government, federal government employment declined by 4,000 in March, following a loss of 11,000 jobs in February. (Employees on paid leave or receiving ongoing severance pay are counted as employed in the establishment survey.)
• Employment showed little change over the month in other major industries, including mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction; construction; manufacturing; wholesale trade; information; financial activities; professional and business services; leisure and hospitality; and other services.

The establishment survey also showed that average hourly pay for all employees rose by 9 cents an hour to $36.00 an hour in March, after it had increased by a downwardly revised 8 cents an hour in February; at the same time, the average hourly earnings of production and non-supervisory employees increased by 5 cents to $30.96 an hour…employers also reported that the average workweek for all private payroll employees was unchanged at 34.2 hours in March, after a 0.1 hour increase in February, while hours for production and non-supervisory personnel was up by 0.2 hours to 33.8 hours….meanwhile, the manufacturing workweek was up by 0.1 hours to 40.2 hours, while average factory overtime was was unchanged at 2.9 hours…

At the same time, the March household survey indicated that the seasonally adjusted extrapolation of those who reported being employed rose by an estimated 201,000 to 163,508,000, while the similarly estimated number of those counted as unemployed rose by 31,000 to 7,083,000; which together meant there was a 232,000 increase in the total labor force…since the working age population had grown by 173,000 over the same period, that meant the number of employment aged individuals who were not in the labor force fell by a rounded 56,000 to 102,431,000…meanwhile, the increase of those in the labor force was large enough, when compared to the civilian noninstitutional population, was enough to increase the labor force participation rate from 62.4% in February to 62.5% in March….however, the increase in number employed as a percentage of the increase in the population was not enough to raise the employment to population ratio, which we could think of as an employment rate, as it remained at 59.9% in March….at the same time, the modest increase in the number unemployed, despite the increase in the labor force, was apparently just large enough to increase the unemployment rate by 0.1%, from 4.1% in February to 4.2% in March….on the other hand, the number who reported they were involuntarily working part time fell by 157,000 to 4,780,000 in March, which was enough to lower the alternative measure of unemployment, U-6, which includes those “employed part time for economic reasons”, from 8.0% in February to 7.9% in March..

Like most reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment situation press release itself is easy to read and understand, so you can get more details on these two reports from there…note that almost every paragraph in that release points to one or more of the tables that are linked to on the bottom of the release, and those tables are also on a separate html page here that you can open it alongside the press release to avoid the need to scroll up and down the page..

Job Openings and Job Quitting Fell in February, Layoffs Rose, & Hiring was Little Changed

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report for February from the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that seasonally adjusted job openings decreased by 194,000, from 7,762,000 in January to 7,568,000 in February, after January’s job openings were revised up by 22,000, from the originally reported 7,740,000…February’s jobs openings were also 10.4% lower than the 8,445,000 job openings reported for February a year ago, as the job opening ratio expressed as a percentage of the employed fell from 4.7% in January to 4.5% in February, and was also down from the 5.1% rate of February a year ago… the finance and insurance sector, with a 80,000 job opening decrease to 270,000 openings, saw the largest percentage decrease, while job openings in professional and business services increased by 134,000 to 1,345,000 (details on job openings by industry and region can be viewed in Table 1)…like most BLS releases, the press release for this report is easy to understand and also refers us to the associated table for the data cited, which are linked at the end of the release…

The JOLTS release also reports on labor turnover, which consists of hires and job separations, which in turn is further divided into layoffs and discharges, those who quit, and ‘other separations’, which includes retirements and deaths….in February, seasonally adjusted new hires totaled 5,396,000, up by 25,000 from the revised 5,371,000 who were hired or rehired in January, as the hiring rate as a percentage of all employed rose was unchanged at 3.4% in February, but was still down from the 3.6% hiring rate in February a year earlier (details of hiring by sector since November and for a year ago are in table 2)….meanwhile, total separations fell by 11,000, from 5,272,000 in January to 5,261,000 in February, as the separations rate as a percentage of the employed was unchanged at 3.3% in February, but was down from the 3.5% separations rate in February a year ago (see details in table 3)…subtracting the 5,261,000 total separations from the total hires of 5,396,000 would imply an increase of 135,000 jobs in February, a bit more than the revised payroll job increase of 117,000 for February reported in the March establishment survey later in the week, but still well within the expected +/-130,000 margin of error for these extrapolated reports…

Breaking down the seasonally adjusted job separations, the BLS found that 3,195,000 of us voluntarily quit our jobs in February, down by 61,000 from the revised 3,256,000 who quit their jobs in January, while the quits rate, widely watched as an indicator of worker confidence, remained unchanged at 2.0% of total employment, while it was down from the quits rate of 2.2% year earlier (see details in table 4)….in addition to those who quit, another 1,790,000 were either laid off, fired or otherwise discharged in February, up by 116,000 from the revised 1,674,000 who were discharged in January, as the discharges rate was unchanged at 1.1% of all those who were employed during the month, and it was also unchanged from the 1.1% discharges rate of a year earlier….meanwhile, other separations, which includes retirements and deaths, were at 275,000 in February, down by 67,000 from the revised 342,000 other separations in January, for an ‘other separations rate’ of 0.2%, unchanged from the 0.2% rate in January, and the same rate as in February of last year….both seasonally adjusted and unadjusted details by industry and by region on hires and job separations, and on job quits and discharges can be accessed using the links to tables at the bottom of the press release…

US Trade Deficit Fell 6.1% in February, Could Still Subtract 934 Basis Points from Q1 GDP

Our trade deficit fell 6.1% in February, as the value of our exports increased while the value of our imports decreased slightly from January’s record level….the Commerce Department report on our international trade in goods and services for February indicated that our seasonally adjusted goods and services trade deficit fell by a rounded $8.0 billion to a rounded $122.7 billion in February, from a January deficit that was revised down to $130.7 billion from the $131.4 billion record reported a month ago…in rounded figures, the value of our February exports rose by a rounded $8.0 billion to $278.5 billion on a $8.3 billion increase to $181.9 billion in our exports of goods, slightly offset by a​ $0.4 billion decrease to $96.5 billion in our exports of services, while the value of our imports fell by less than $0.1 billion to $401.1 billion as a $0.5 billion decrease to $328.9 billion in our imports of goods was mostly offset by a $0.5 billion increase to $72.2 billion in our imports of services….export prices averaged 0.​1% higher in February, which means a small part of the increase in the nominal value of our exports for the month was price related, and that our real exports likely rose on the order of 2.8%, while import prices also averaged 0.4% higher, meaning that the small decrease in imports occurred despite higher prices, and that real imports probably fell about 0.4%..

The $8.3 billion increase in the value of our February exports of goods resulted from higher exports of industrial supplies and materials, of capital goods, and of automotive products, which were partly offset by a decrease in our exports of other goods…referencing the Full Release and Tables for February (pdf), in Exhibit 7 we find that our exports of industrial supplies and materials rose by $3,041 million to $62,475 million on a $3,216 million increase in our exports of non-monetary gold, which w​a​s partly offset by a $1,040 million decrease in our exports of fuel oil, and that our exports of capital goods rose by $2,698 million to $59,331 million, led by a $511 million increase in our exports of civilian aircraft and a $875 million increase in our exports of computer accessories….in addition, our exports of automotive vehicles, parts, and engines rose by $1,606 million to $14,220 million, on a $955 million increase in our exports of new and used passenger cars and a $619 million increase in our exports of trucks, buses, and special purpose vehicles, and our exports of consumer goods rose by $514 million to $22,011 million as a $676 million decrease in our exports of jewelry was ​more than offset by a $722 million increase in our exports of gem diamonds…partly offsetting the increases in those end use categories, our exports of foods, feeds and beverages fell by $362 million to $13,047 million, and our exports in other goods not categorized by end use fell by $1309 million to $7,515 million…

Exhibit 8 in the Full Release and Tables gives us seasonally adjusted details on our imports of goods and shows that lower imports of industrial supplies and materials were mostly offset by higher imports of consumer goods and of capital goods….our imports of industrial supplies and materials fell by $4,162 million to $86,249 million as a $2.562 million decrease in our imports of finished metal shapes, a $1,333 million decrease in our imports of nonmonetary gold, and a $482 million decrease in our imports of crude oil were partly offset by a $626 million increase in our imports of natural gas and a $650 million increase in our imports of precious metals other than gold, and that our imports of foods, feeds, and beverages fell by $404 million to $19,622 million….mostly offsetting the ​d​ecreases in those two end use categories, our imports of consumer goods increased by $2​401 million to $80,677 million as a $1,545 million increase in our imports of a cell phones and a $1​,220 million increase in our imports of pharmaceutical preparations were partly offset by a $404 million decrease in our imports of toys, games, and sporting goods, and our imports of capital goods rose by $981 million to $89,378 million​. as a $655 million increase in our imports of computers, a $462 million increase in our imports of medical equipment and a $372 million increase in our imports of civilian aircraft engines were partly offset by a $732 million decrease in our imports of civilian aircraft …in addition, our imports of automotive vehicles, parts and engines rose by $465 million to $38,433 million as a $517 million increase in our imports of automotive parts and accessories other than engines, chassis, and tires was mostly offset by a $505 million increase in our imports of passenger cars, and while our imports of other goods not categorized by end use rose by $116 million to $12,088 million…

The press release for this month’s report summarizes Exhibit 19 in the full release pdf for February, which gives us surplus and deficit details on our goods trade with selected countries:

The February figures show surpluses, in billions of dollars, with South and Central America ($4.8), Netherlands ($4.1), United Kingdom ($3.4), Hong Kong ($2.4), Belgium ($0.8), Brazil ($0.4), and Saudi Arabia ($0.2). Deficits were recorded, in billions of dollars, with European Union ($30.9), China ($26.6), Switzerland ($18.8), Mexico ($16.8), Ireland ($14.0), Vietnam ($12.4), Taiwan ($8.7), Germany ($8.1), Canada ($7.3), India ($5.6), Japan ($5.2), Italy ($5.1), South Korea ($4.5), Malaysia ($3.1), Australia ($2.1), France ($1.5), Singapore ($1.1), and Israel ($0.7).

• The deficit with Switzerland decreased $4.0 billion to $18.8 billion in February. Exports increased $0.7 billion to $2.5 billion and imports decreased $3.3 billion to $21.3 billion.
• The balance with the United Kingdom shifted from a deficit of $0.5 billion in January to a surplus of $3.4 billion in February. Exports increased $3.3 billion to $9.5 billion and imports decreased $0.6 billion to $6.1 billion.
• The deficit with the European Union increased $5.4 billion to $30.9 billion in February. Exports decreased $2.3 billion to $29.9 billion and imports increased $3.2 billion to $60.8 billion.

To gauge the impact of January and February trade data on the eventual 1st quarter GDP growth figures, we use exhibit 10 in the full pdf for this report, which gives us monthly goods trade figures by end use category and in total, already adjusted for inflation in chained 2017 dollars, the same inflation adjustment that’s used by the BEA to compute trade figures for GDP, with the only difference being that the amounts in this report are not annualized….from that table, we can figure that the 4th quarter’s real exports of goods averaged 143,833.7 million monthly in chained 2017 dollars, while inflation adjusted 1st quarter goods exports were at 142,999 million and 147,864 million for January and February respectively in that same 2017 dollar quantity index representation…averaging January’s and February’s goods exports and then computing the annualized change between that average and the average of the fourth quarter, we find that the 1st quarter’s real exports of goods are running at a 4.52% annual rate above those of the 4th quarter, or at a pace that would add about 0.31 percentage points to 1st quarter GDP….. in a similar manner, we find that our 4th quarter real imports of goods averaged 244,241.3 million monthly in chained 2017 dollars, while inflation adjusted January and February imports were at 285,316 million and 283,289 million respectively, after that same 2017 chained dollars inflation adjustment…that would indicate that so far in the 1st quarter, our real imports of goods have increased at a 83.59% annual rate from those of the 4th quarter…since increases in imports subtract from GDP because they represent the portion of consumption or investment that occurred during the quarter that was not produced domestically, their increase at a 89.59% rate would subtract about 9.65 percentage points from 1st quarter GDP….hence, if the average trade deficit in goods of the two months reported here is continued in March, the net effect of our international trade in goods will be to subtract around 9.34 percentage points from 1st quarter GDP…

Note that we have not computed the impact of the usually less volatile change in services here because the Census does not provide inflation adjusted data on those, but that the $0.4 billion decrease in exports of services vs the $0.5 billion increase in imports of services suggests that February’s trade in services would also be a subtraction from 1st quarter GDP, after a near balance in the change in January’s exports and imports in services suggested that the impact of that month’s services trade on GDP would be negligible…

Construction Spending Rose 0.7% in February after January & December Figures Were Revised Lower

The Census Bureau’s report on February construction spending (pdf) reported that“Construction spending during February 2025 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2,195.8 billion, 0.7 percent (±0.8 percent)* above the revised January estimate of $2,179.9 billion. The February figure is 2.9 percent (±1.3 percent) above the February 2024 estimate of $2,133.8 billion. During the first two months of this year, construction s+pending amounted to $311.1 billion, 2.1 percent (±1.2 percent) above the $304.8 billion for the same period in 2024. “…the January annualized spending estimate was revised almost 0.6% lower, from the $2,192.5 billion reported a month ago to $2,179.9 billion, while December’s construction spending was revised down by more than 0.2%, from $2,196.0 billion to $2,191.059 billion annually, which together meant that the December to January construction spending change was revised from the decrease of 0.2%​ reported a month ago to a decrease of 0.5%….meanwhile, December’s annualized spending decrease would mean we’ll see a downward revision of about 9 basis point to 4th quarter GDP when the annual revisions are released later this summer…

A further breakdown of the different subsets of construction spending are provided by a Census summary, which precedes the detailed spreadsheets, is included below:

• Private Construction – Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,686.4 billion, 0.9 percent (±0.7 percent) above the revised January estimate of $1,671.8 billion. Residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $928.9 billion in February, 1.3 percent (±1.3 percent)* above the revised January estimate of $917.1 billion. Nonresidential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $757.5 billion in February, 0.4 percent (±0.7 percent)* above the revised January estimate of $754.8 billion.
• Public Construction - In February, the estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of public construction spending was $509.3 billion, 0.2 percent (±1.8 percent)* above the revised January estimate of $508.1 billion. Educational construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $110.8 billion, 0.3 percent (±2.3 percent)* above the revised January estimate of $110.4 billion. Highway construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $147.2 billion, 1.2 percent (±6.7 percent)* above the revised January estimate of $145.4 billion.

As you can gather from that summary, construction spending data is used as the source for 3 subcomponents of GDP; investment in private non-residential structures, investment in residential structures, and for government investment outlays, for both state and local governments…however, getting an accurate read on the impact of February’s construction spending reported in this release on 1st quarter GDP is difficult because all figures given here are in nominal dollars and as you know, data used to compute the change in GDP must be adjusted for changes in price to determine the actual change in construction put in place….there are multiple prices indexes for different types of construction listed in the National Income and Product Accounts Handbook, Chapter 6 (pdf), so in lieu of trying to adjust the figures for all of those types of construction separately, we’ve opted to just use the producer price index for final demand construction as an inexact shortcut to make the needed price adjustment and come up with an approximate estimate…

That price index showed that aggregate construction costs were 0.1% lower in February, after they had increased by 0.4% in January, and increased by 0.1% in December and were unchanged in November…on that basis, we can estimate that February construction costs were about 0.3% more than those of December, 0.4% more than those of November, and also roughly 0.4% more than those of October, and of course roughly 0.1% less than those of January….we’ll then use those relative price change percentages to inflate the lower cost spending figures for each of the 4th quarter months vis a vis February (and deflate the lower cost spending figures for January), which is arithmetically the same as adjusting higher priced January and February construction spending downward, for purposes of comparison…

This report gives annualized construction spending in millions of dollars for the 4th quarter months as $2,191,059 in December, $2,184,796 in November, and $2,176,627 in October, while annualized construction spending was at $2,091,511 million in February and $2,096,922 million​ in January….thus to compare January’s nominal construction spending of $2,179,942 and February’s figure of $2,195,755 to “inflation adjusted” figures of the fourth quarter, our computation looks like this: ((2,195,755 + 2,179,942 * 0.999) / 2 ) / ((2,191,059 * 1.003 + 2,184,796 * 1.004 + 2,176,627 * 1.004) / 3) = 0.99753284, which tells us that real construction spending over January and February has fallen by 0.25% from that of the 4th quarter period, or that it was down at a 0.98% annual rate…then, to figure the potential effect of that change on GDP, we take the difference between the 4th quarter inflation adjusted average and that of January’s & February’s adjusted spending as a fraction of 4th quarter GDP, and find that 1st quarter construction spending is falling at a rate that would subtract about 0.11 percentage points from 1st quarter GDP, an estimate which assumes there would be little change in real construction in March over the January & February average…

February Factory Shipments Rose 0.7%, Factory Inventories were 0.1% Higher

The Full Report on Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories, & Orders (pdf) for February from the Census Bureau reported that the seasonally adjusted value of new orders for manufactured goods increased by $3.6 billion or 0.6 percent to $594.0 billion, the second consecutive increase , following a revised 1.8% increase to $590.4 billion in January, which was originally reported as a 1.7 percent increase to $589.9 billion a month ago….however, since the Census Bureau does not even collect data on new orders for non durable goods for this widely watched “factory orders report”, both the “new orders” and “unfilled orders” sections of this report are really only accurate as revised updates to the February advance report on durable goods, which was released last week…on those durable goods revisions, the Census Bureau’s own summary, which precedes their detailed spreadsheet of the metrics included in this report, is quite clear and complete, so we’ll just quote directly from that summary here:

• Summary: New orders for manufactured goods in February, up two consecutive months, increased $3.6 billion or 0.6 percent to $594.0 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. This followed a 1.8 percent January increase. Shipments, up four consecutive months, increased $4.2 billion or 0.7 percent to $596.8 billion. This followed a 0.5 percent January increase. Unfilled orders, up seven of the last eight months, increased $2.1 billion or 0.1 percent to $1,402.7 billion. This followed a 0.2 percent January increase. The unfilled orders-to-shipments ratio was 6.81, down from 6.84 in January. Inventories, up four consecutive months, increased $1.3 billion or 0.1 percent to $864.9 billion. This followed a 0.1 percent January increase. The inventories-to-shipments ratio was 1.45, down from 1.46 in January.
• New Orders for manufactured durable goods in February, up two consecutive months, increased $2.8 billion or 1.0 percent to $289.4 billion, up from the previously published 0.9 percent increase. This followed a 3.4 percent January increase. Transportation equipment, also up two consecutive months, led the increase, $1.5 billion or 1.5 percent to $98.4 billion. New orders for manufactured nondurable goods increased $0.8 billion or 0.3 percent to $304.5 billion.
• Shipments of manufactured durable goods in February, up three consecutive months, increased $3.4 billion or 1.2 percent to $292.3 billion, unchanged from the previously published increase. This followed a 0.7 percent January increase. Transportation equipment, also up three consecutive months, led the increase, $2.0 billion or 2.1 percent to $96.7 billion. Shipments of manufactured nondurable goods, up five consecutive months, increased $0.8 billion or 0.3 percent to $304.5 billion. This followed a 0.3 percent January increase. Chemical products, up twelve of the last thirteen months, led the increase, $0.6 billion or 0.8 percent to $83.7 billion.
• Unfilled Orders for manufactured durable goods in February, up seven of the last eight months, increased $2.1 billion or 0.1 percent to $1,402.7 billion, unchanged from the previously published increase. This followed a 0.2 percent January increase. Transportation equipment, also up seven of the last eight months, led the increase, $1.7 billion or 0.2 percent to $904.2 billion.
• Inventories of manufactured durable goods in February, up four consecutive months, increased $0.4 billion or 0.1 percent to $533.0 billion, unchanged from the previously published increase. This followed a virtually unchanged January increase. Transportation equipment, also up four consecutive months, led the increase, $0.3 billion or 0.2 percent to $175.2 billion. Inventories of manufactured nondurable goods, up four consecutive months, increased $0.9 billion or 0.3 percent to $331.8 billion. This followed a 0.2 percent January increase. Petroleum and coal products, also up four consecutive months, led the increase, $0.4 billion or 0.9 percent to $48.9 billion.

To gauge the effect of February’s dollar valued factory inventories on 1st quarter GDP, they must first be adjusted for changes in price with appropriate components of the producer price index….by stage of fabrication, the value of finished goods inventories increased 0.2% to $294,998 million; the value of work in process inventories decreased 0.2% to $254,298 million, and the value of materials and supplies inventories increased by 0.4% to $315,568 million…​m​eanwhile, the producer price index for February indicated that prices for finished goods increased 0.3%, that prices for intermediate processed goods were 1.0% higher, and that prices for unprocessed goods were on average 1.3% higher, as core raw materials averaged a 2.2% price increase….assuming similar valuations for like inventories, that would suggest that February’s real finished goods inventories were around 0.1% smaller than January’s, that real inventories of intermediate processed goods were about 1.2% smaller, and that real raw material inventory inventories were at least 0.9%​ lower, with a caveat that crude oil prices, which fell 2.4%, are overweighed in the PPI when compared to their 5% of factory inventories …since this report thus indicates a decrease of more than 0.7% in real factory inventories, following a 2.1% decrease in January, and since there was a modest increase in real factory inventories in the 4th quarter, any 1st quarter decrease in real factory inventories would first subtract that 4th quarter increase​, and then also subtract the first quarter decrease​, from the growth rate of first quarter GDP…

 

 

(the above is the synopsis that accompanied my regular sunday morning news links emailing, which in turn was mostly selected from my weekly blog post on the global glass onion…if you’d be interested in receiving my weekly emailing of selected links, most of which are picked from the aforementioned GGO posts, contact me…)