Orders for manufactured goods increased in February thanks to an increased demand for products for airplanes and automobiles, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
According to the recent report from the Commerce Department, orders for long-lasting manufactured goods – items that will last three years or more – increased by 2.2 percent. The growth in February is the first increase in two months. Bigger demand from consumers will mean that businesses will have to increase their quotas, which means they will have to hire full-time, part-time and temporary workers in order to meet orders.
Although orders for durable goods were up, non-defense capital goods were down by 1.3 percent. Omair Sharif, senior economist at RBS, said in an interview with Reuters the first quarter 2014 is slightly below economists expectations.
"First-quarter business investment looks to be soft, and it challenges some of the optimism surrounding the idea that capital expenditures were set to advance noticeably in 2014 from their 2013 pace," Sharif said.
Despite economists being timid about the rest of the year, commercial aircraft orders and defense orders grew in February by 13.6 percent and 13.5 percent, respectively.