NAM and Industry Week Q3 Manufacturing Survey shows manufacturing still in positive territory but the much weaker economy  is causing much weaker sentiment looking ahead.

Not the trend we are hoping for...

Three takeaways:

  1. Current outlookManufacturers optimism has declined from 86.4% of respondents  either very or somewhat positive in their  business outlook in the June survey, only 65.4% said the same in the third quarter — a drop of over 20 percentage points.
  2. Economy is top concernNearly 65% of manufacturers surveyed said that a weaker domestic economy was hurting their sales.
  3. Regulatory issues are real drag on growth–  Almost 61% said that an unfavorable business climate was one of the biggest
    challenges right now, and nearly 80% felt that government involvement was impeding their ability to grow their operations.
Not as good as we'd like...

You can see the more results on Industry Week site here.