The U.S. manufacturing sector posted its 10th straight month of expansion in May, according to the Institute for Supply Management. It’s a development that bodes well for employment in Clark County, a regional labor economist said today.
“We are seeing some of that uptick in manufacturing already here,” said Scott Bailey, Southwest Washington regional economist for the state Employment Security Department.
That’s good news for a county suffering from a jobless rate of 13.7 percent. However, Bailey cautioned against using the report released by the Institute for Supply Management today to predict a local turnaround. The institute, a trade group of purchasing executives, said its manufacturing index dipped slightly in May from a nearly six-year high in April. But the 59.7 reading for May was well above the 50 level that indicates expansion.
Bailey said he would expect to see in Clark County “a little more uptick in metal fabrication and machines, and maybe transportation equipment and maybe plastics.”
A broad-based expansion in manufacturing could positively affect Clark County manufacturers, such as Vancouver-based Columbia Machine Inc., which is a worldwide supplier of automated equipment used to put goods on pallets and concrete products-making machinery and systems. For more, read Wednesday’s Columbian.
