Weakness In Metal Service Center Shipments Continued In July

Connecting the Dots monitors all major economic announcements in the United States and Canada, but MSCI also offers industrial metals industry-specific data products that provide much deeper analysis and insight. Visit MSCI’s website and click on Industry Data to learn more about our Metals Activity Report (MAR), Momentum Monitors, and Economic Opportunity and Risk Tracker.

Meanwhile, here are the major economic headlines from the last week:

• According to MSCI’s Metals Activity Report, U.S. service center steel shipments in July 2022 declined 1.6 percent from July 2021. Shipments of aluminum products fell 5.3 percent from the same month in 2021. Canadian service center steel shipments in July 2022 decreased by 5.1 percent from July 2021 while shipments of aluminum products fell 21.3 percent.
• U.S. nonfarm business sector labor productivity fell 4.6 percent from the first quarter of 2022 to the second quarter due to a 2.1 percent decline in output and a 2.6 percent decline in hours worked. Productivity was down 2.5 percent from the same quarter in 2021, the largest drop on record. Despite the overall decline, manufacturing productivity rose at a 5.5 percent annual rate in the second quarter after three months of drops. Sector output was up 4.3 percent, after rising 3.9 percent in the first quarter. The number of hours worked fell 1.1 percent. Hourly compensation was up 4.9 percent. Click here to read the full report.
• Real average hourly earnings for all U.S. employees increased 0.5 percent from June 2022 to July 2022, but were down three percent from July 2021 to July 2022.
• The number U.S. workers filing for federal unemployment benefits increased the week of August 6, reaching their highest level so far this year. Initial jobless claims, an indicator of layoffs, rose to a seasonally adjusted 262,000 from 248,000 the previous week. During the week that ended July 30, 1.428 million people continued to receive jobless benefits, an increase of 8,000 from the previous week.
• In other economic news: the U.S. consumer price index was flat from June 2022 to July 2022, but was up 8.5 percent from July 2021 to July 2022; the U.S. producer price index fell 0.5 percent in July, but was up 9.8 percent year-over-year; and U.S. import prices decreased 1.4 percent in July while price index for U.S. exports fell 3.3 percent in July.