Area Development
The ongoing manufacturing recession will continue to worsen and may not grow again until 2010, according to a forecast from the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI. The organization predicts that U.S. manufacturing production will fall to 1.4 percent for 2008, then continue to decline 4.2 percent in 2009 and grow 0.9 percent in 2010. "The vicious circle of financial crisis, decline in wealth, consumer spending cuts, and job loss continues to spiral into a severe recession - certainly the worst since the early 1980s," says Daniel J. Meckstroth, Ph.D., chief economist for the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI. "A recession among our trading partners has weakened the outlook for exports, which is one of the few remaining pillars providing positive support to the economy, particularly the manufacturing sector." Manufacturing industrial production declined 7.8 percent (annual rate) in the third quarter of 2008; non-high tech manufacturing production declined 8.2 percent.