State’s Factory Growth Continues

Boosted by resurgent business spending and a sizzling housing market, California’s manufacturing sector continued to grow and outperformed the nation’s factories in the second quarter, according to a survey released Tuesday.

Chapman University in Orange said its California manufacturing index came in at 60.7 in the April-June period. Although that was down slightly from 60.8 in the first quarter, it was stronger than the 52.8 posted by a comparable national survey by the Institute for Supply Management.

It was the fourth consecutive quarter in which the California index beat the national index, Chapman said. Both indexes are based on surveys of purchasing managers, and any reading in either index above 50 signifies growth in the manufacturing sector.

California’s manufacturers are benefiting from rebounding business spending on technology and machinery, said Raymond Sfeir, an economist at Chapman’s A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research, which conducted the survey.

In addition, the hot housing market is driving orders for manufactured products for the home, and the weak dollar is boosting exports of factory goods by making them cheaper in foreign markets, he said.

California’s manufacturers are outdoing their national counterparts in part because the Golden State is more export oriented and boasts a more robust housing market, Sfeir said.

“We export more, so that has helped us,” he said.

The non-technology durable goods segment -- which includes such goods as fabricated metal products, machinery and electrical equipment -- posted stronger growth in the quarter than the technology and non-durable goods segments, the Chapman survey said.