Manufacturers Remain Resilient
Randy Wolken, President & CEO

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) recently released its 2022 Second Quarter Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey, which indicates that manufacturers have significant concerns around the recession, inflation, hiring, and the China competition legislation. NAM conducted the survey between May 17–31, 2022. However, despite multiple concerns, most of those surveyed remained optimistic, with 82.6% of respondents maintaining a positive outlook for their company.

Key Findings from the Survey:

• In the survey, 59.3% of manufacturing leaders believed inflationary pressures would make a recession more likely in the next 12 months.
• Increased raw material costs topped the list of primary business challenges in the second quarter, cited by 90.1% of respondents.
• Three-quarters of manufacturers felt inflationary pressures were worse today than six months ago, with 53.7% noting that higher prices made it harder to compete and remain profitable.
• The top sources of inflation were increased raw material prices (97.2%), freight and transportation costs (83.9%), wages and salaries (79.5%), and energy costs (55.9%), with 49.4% also citing a shortage of available workers.
• When asked what aspects of the China competition legislation were most important for supporting manufacturing activity, 70.9% of respondents cited addressing port congestion and competition issues in ocean shipping.

NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons comments, “Russia’s war on Ukraine has undeniably exacerbated higher energy and food costs. This, along with record deficit spending since the pandemic began, has created the highest inflation since 1981. But actions here at home can help ease these pressures, including first and foremost harnessing every energy resource available to us domestically and quickly—and refraining from imposing new taxes on manufacturers or families. It also means acting on manufacturers’ solutions to our supply chain challenges and passing the China competition bill—or Bipartisan Innovation Act. Though it won’t solve every issue, this will give us many of the tools needed to ramp up domestic manufacturing and strengthen our supply chains. That’s why 88% of manufacturers in our survey see it as an important piece of legislation—and Congress needs to move swiftly to get it to President Biden’s desk.”

MACNY concurs with NAM in its call for Congress to pass the Bipartisan Innovation Act. We need tools to strengthen manufacturing against unfair Chinese competition, strengthen supply chains, and boost domestic semiconductor production.

The coming months will test the resilience of the manufacturing sector. At MACNY, we have seen just how resilient our members have been. We stand ready to assist in helping you thrive in these challenging times. Thanks for all you are doing for our communities throughout New York State.