Durable Goods Orders Jumped 2.9% in July

Factory orders for “big-ticket” durable goods rebounded 2.9% in July, the government reported Thursday. But analysts said the zig-zag performance this year indicates a listless manufacturing economy that could worsen because of the Mideast crisis.

“Orders have been bouncing up and down, and the net effect is a very weak upward trend,” said economist Cynthia Latta of DRI/McGraw-Hill, a Lexington, Mass., economic research firm. “I don’t actually see the industrial sector in decline, but there’s not much stimulus for expansion there.”

Economist Thomas Runiewicz of the WEFA Group in Bala-Cynwyd, Pa., agreed, but added: “Since the Middle Eastern crisis, we’re in a different ball game. . . . It makes things a little tougher than what we were experiencing before, and that was fairly flat.”

The Commerce Department reported that orders for durable goods--those expected to last more than three years--totaled a seasonally adjusted $128.3 billion after slumping 3.2% in June.

In the first half of the year, orders rose during three months and fell in the others, including a record 10.5% drop in January. During that time, orders totaled $744.7 billion, a 1.5% decline from the same period of 1989.

The sluggishness in the manufacturing economy has cost 350,000 factory jobs since that sector peaked in March, 1989, including 7,000 more in July, according to Labor Department figures. Drops in orders normally result in production cuts and job layoffs.

Latta noted that the July increase included a 5% boost in transportation orders, to $34.9 billion, which she said will not result in any immediate stimulus to the economy.