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Just when the Gardner Business Index (GBI): Composites Fabricating seemed to have settled into a mode of continually accelerated contraction for 5 months, August bounced back a bit. The index closed the month at 47.5, up 1.1 points from July. Expansion is still in the distance, but closer in reach than it has been in a while.

All of the GBI: Composites Fabricating components except supplier deliveries contracted in August. In fact, supplier deliveries saw accelerated lengthening, which may, at least in part, be “normalization” of what is typically a widely variable component outside of a disruption-inducing pandemic. 

August is a repeat of July for four GBI components. New orders, production and backlog contracted faster again in August, while exports have contracted at essentially the same rate since April 2022.  

As anticipated in July, employment contracted in August for the first time in almost three years. Similar to, but less dramatically than supplier deliveries, employment is a component that was largely impacted by the pandemic. August’s contraction may, at least in part, be a function of “normalization” post-pandemic.

Future business, a sentiment/outlook metric that is not part of the GBI calculation, but related to it, expanded at a faster rate in August, indicating more people think business is looking up in the next 12 months.