Outlook Brightens for Nation’s Manufacturers : Industry: A survey shows business confidence improving, suggesting higher output ahead.

The first signs are emerging that the nation’s manufacturers are becoming more confident of the future and are looking ahead to increased production and, eventually, additional jobs.

A private survey of business confidence rose in February, reversing months of steady declines. And the government reported a big jump in capital goods orders in January, suggesting that businesses are beginning to resume investing in new equipment.

Still, most analysts believe that industrial production will remain weak--if not negative--during the current quarter as businesses postpone purchases and try to sell inventories that built up at the end of 1991.

Any improvement, the analysts say, will be modest compared to other post-World War II recoveries.

The manufacturing sector, which had the unusual role of leading the economy out of the recession last spring, stalled in the fall with the rest of the economy.

But a February survey by Cahners Economics of Newton, Mass., suggested “an expanding economy will be evident by midyear.” The monthly survey asks 400 businesses about their outlook three months in the future.

Kermit Baker, Cahners’ chief economist, said a sharp upturn in the firm’s January index “provided the first clear indicator that the U.S. economy is reviving.”

The January reading, Baker said, was supported when the Cahners index rose a month later. The index had fallen steadily from June until December.

However, “to confirm any real shift toward economic recovery, business has to see signs of consumer confidence returning,” Baker said.

An index of current activity compiled from a survey by the National Assn. of Purchasing Management was unchanged in January after falling for three straight months.

“I have a sense that we’re building a bottom here, if not in January, then in the month or two to come,” Robert Bretz, chairman of the association’s survey committee and head of corporate purchasing for Pitney Bowes Inc., said when the survey was released a month ago.

The association’s survey for February was to be released today.

The Commerce Department report on orders for big-ticket durable goods last week showed overall non-defense capital goods orders jumped 9.1% in January. Excluding aircraft, which some analysts contend often skews the figures because of volatility, orders still rose 4.3%.

Capital goods orders often are a barometer of industry plans to expand and modernize, as well as a measure of business confidence. Still, some believe that the business investment plans are due more to lower interest rates and lower equipment prices than to growing confidence.

For example, “computer prices have fallen dramatically,” said Gordon Richards, director of economic policy for the National Assn. of Manufacturers. Combined with the lower cost of capital, “the net result is a tremendous demand for computers.”

Unfilled orders, excluding aircraft, advanced 0.7%, the first improvement in four months. Those orders are a measure of whether current production facilities and manpower are able to keep up with demand. If they rise, that could prompt businesses to gear up production lines and hire more workers.

In the Cahners survey, Baker said that for every one company “saying it would cut back in employment, five said they would increase it.”

New orders for durable goods--usually expensive and long-lasting items such as cars and computers--rose 1.5% in January.

“There’s enough orders in the pipeline to prompt a bit of turnaround on the production front in the next several months,” said economist Stephen S. Roach of Morgan Stanley & Co. in New York. “It’s the kind of ammunition we need for a recovery in the spring.”