According to the latest Manufacturing ISM Report on Business, the February purchasing managers' index (PMI), which gauges the performance of the manufacturing sector, registered 54.2 percent, a decrease of 2.4 percentage points from the January reading of 56.6 percent.
The expansion in the manufacturing sector, which is often signaled by a PMI reading above 50 percent, "indicates growth in manufacturing for the 30th consecutive month," said Timothy Fiore, chair of the ISM's Manufacturing Business Survey Committee.
Of all the 11 indicators tracked by the IMS, seven illustrated decrease in growth rate month-on-month, with the sharpest decline occurring in the production index, down 5.7 percentage points to 54.8 percent.
"Production was not able to keep pace with customer-inventory demand and was not able to prevent a growth in backlog orders," said Fiore. "Weather conditions causing factory shutdowns may have contributed to the weaker expansion performance."
Furthermore, the new orders index was down 2.7 percentage points to 55.5 percent, the employment index dropped 3.2 percentage points to 52.3 percent and the prices index dipped 0.2 percentage points to 49.4 percent, according to the report.
The February PMI figure corresponded to a 3.3-percent increase in real gross domestic product on an annualized basis, the report added.
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