Here’s a picture:
Figure 1: Manufacturing capacity utilization, % (blue, left scale), and manufacturing production index (tan, right log scale). Source: Federal Reserve via FRED.
That quote is from EJ Antoni on X in August, 2024… Nonetheless, it does seem like an apt description of manufacturing at year’s-end. Employment numbers substantiate a slowdown:
Figure 2: Manufacturing BLS official (blue), implied preliminary benchmark (tan), Powell conjecture applied to preliminary benchmark (green), ADP manufacturing (red), all in 000’s; aggregate manufacturing hours, 2025M01=1 (purple, right scale). Hours calculated multiplying average weekly hours multiplied by benchmarked total manufacturing employment. Source: BLS, ADP via FRED, and author’s calculations.
If manufacturing is in recession in August 2024, why not in December 2025?
What a genius. He is right when he is wrong. He must be Fed chair
One could argue there’s a productivity increase showing up in these curves — labor count down, cap utilization down, output up.
Absolutely. Note, however, that extreme peaks in productivity are usually associated with recession:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1QL57