Producer confidence hardly changed

The mood among Dutch manufacturers hardly changed in February. The producer confidence indicator stood at – 1.5 versus – 1.4 in January 2011. Producer confidence remained stable in January relative to December as well.

Producer confidence consists of three component indicators: manufacturers’ opinions on their stocks of finished products, the expected output over the next three months and opinions on their order positions.

The component indicators did show some changes in February. Manufacturers’ opinions on their stocks of finished products improved somewhat. They were also less pessimistic about their order positions than last month, but they were more pessimistic about their future output than in January.

The number of manufacturers indicating that the value of the orders they received has grown in the past three months was smaller than the number of manufacturers who reported a decline. However, with 102.9, the order position index (orders expressed in months of work) was marginally higher than in January (102.1).

Just as in the preceding months, the number of manufacturers expecting employment in their branch to fall over the next three months was higher than the number anticipating employment growth, but the group expecting layoffs became smaller. Manufacturers expected to raise the selling prices of their products.

Producer confidence in manufacturing industry

More figures can be found in dossier Business cycle.