NAM: Manufacturers Adding Workers, But Still Below Pre-COVID-19 Pace According to Chad Moutray, Ph.D. and Chief Economist at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) man- ufacturers added 29,000 workers in August, slowing but extending the 41,000 gain in employment in July. Despite increases over the past four months, the labor market remains well below its pre-COVID-19 pace, with manu- facturing employment down 720,000 since February. As such, sizable labor market challenges continue despite recent progress. The current outlook is for manufacturing employment to bounce back to roughly 12,350,000 workers by year’s end, up from 12,132,000 in August but down from the prepandemic pace of 12,852,000 in February. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy added 1,371,000 work- ers in August, with the unemployment rate dropping for the fourth straight month to 8.4 percent. Initial unemployment claims declined from 1,011,000 for the week ending Aug. 22 to 881,000 for the week ending Aug. 29. Overall, initial claims have decelerated since peaking at 6,867,000 for the week ending March 28, averaging 1,031,600 over the past five weeks. The ISM Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index- expanded in August at the fastest pace since November CONTINUED ON PAGE 10
Box Shipments ( U.S. Corrugated Product Shipments) Industry Shipments In Billions of Square Feet Month July 2020
Year
Actual
Percent Change Avg Week Percent Change
2020 2019
34.784 33.734
3.1
7.905 8.032
-1.6
Industry Total
Year-to Date
July 2020
Year
Actual
Percent Change Avg Week Percent Change
2020 2019
231.403 227.669
1.6
7.765 7.744
0.3
Industry Total
Containerboard Consumption (Thousands of Tons)
Year
Month
Percent Change Year-to-Date Percent Change
2020 2019
2.7993 2.7517
1.7
18.9354 18.7289
1.1
Container Board Inventory - Corrugator Plants (Thousands of Tons)
Corrugator Plants Only
Date
Percent Change Weeks of Supply
Percent Change
Jul. Jun.
2.0214 2.0865
-3.1
3.2 3.3
-3.0
Shipping Days
Year
Month
Year-to-Date
2020 2019
22 21
149 147
SOURCE: Fibre Box Association
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