JULY 1935 SURVEY OF CURRENT BUSINESS UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE BUREAU OF FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC COMMERCE WASHINGTON VOLUME 15 NUMBER 7 The usual SEMIANNUAL j^BVISION of material has been made in this issue. A list of the series added and the series dropped is given below. A cumulative table of all the new series added since the publication of the 1932 Annual Supplement through the month of May 1935 was shown on the inside front covers of the March and May 1935 issues; so this list com- pletes the tabulation through this issue. ((The changes made were held to a minimum in view of space limitations. The publication of the Annual Supplement early in 1936 will permit the elimination of most of the footnotes in the monthly issues and allow some expansion in the data carried. ({The pages indicated for the new series refer to this issue, except where noted, while the pages given for the discontinued series refer to the June 1935 issue. DATA ADDED DISCONTINUED DATA—Continued Page Page Home Owners' Loan Corporation, applications re- Advertising—Continued ceived and loans closed 25 Magazine advertising cost: Building materials, Advertising, Printers' Ink indexes of general, farm clothing and dry goods, confectionery, finan- paper, magazine, newspaper, outdoor, and radio cial, garden, house furnishings, jewelry and advertising 25 silverware, machinery, office equipment, paints and hardware, radios, schools, shoes Radio advertising, an "all other" classification and leather goods, soaps and housekeepers' added to include series dropped 25 supplies, sporting goods, stationery and books, Magazine advertising, an "all other" classification travel and amusement, and miscellaneous._ 25 added to include series dropped 25 Employment, banks, brokerage houses, etc* 28 Factory employment, indexes for durable and non- Pay rolls, banks, brokerage houses, etc.* 30 durable goods industries-- 27 Rice, shipments from mills, New Orleans 40 Factory pay rolls, indexes for durable and nondu- Wheat, wholesale price, No 1, Northern, Spring, rable goods industries 29, 30 Minneapolis * 41 Wheat, wholesale price, No. 1, dark, Spring, North- Petroleum: ern, Minneapolis 43 Mexico, crude production and exports 43 Lumber, production, shipments, and stocks, total Venezuela, crude production and exports 43 for all regions and for hardwoods and softwoods-_ 48 Northern hardwoods, production and shipments*—. 45 Electric household refrigerator sales 53 Paper, total, book paper (coated and uncoated), fine Northern hemlock, production and shipments* 46 paper and wrapping paper, orders, new and unfilled, Iron, steel, and heavy hardware, sales index* 46 production, shipments, and stocks, and in addi- Aluminum, wholesale price, No. 1, virgin, 98—99 tion for book paper percentage of potential capac- (N. Y.)* 49 ity -_-- 54 Copper, wire cloth, make and hold-over orders* 50 Structural clay products (common brick, vitrified Paper series on production and shipments, which paving brick, and hollow building tile), shipments were prorated from American Paper and Pulp and stocks 56 Association data, including series of total paper, Consumption of apparel-class wool (scoured basis),_ 58 paper board, writing, wrapping, and "all other" grades. Also series on orders, production, and Cotton yarn, wholesale price, 40/is, Southern, spin- shipments of book paper and the Bureau of the ning 57 Census series on shipments and stocks of paper Rayon deliveries 58 board. (See the new series added in this section)* _ 50-51 Cotton yarn, wholesale price, 40/ls, Southern, DISCONTINUED DATA spinning * 53 Imports: Burlaps, fibers, buttons, total and from Real estate market activity* 25 the Philippines, shells, total and mother-of-pearl, Advertising: and tagua nuts 54 Radio broadcasting cost: Building materials, Taxicab production* 55 clothing and dry goods, confectionery, finan- Canadian business statistics—inspected slaughter cial, house furnishings, machinery, paints and of cattle and calves, swine, and sheep and lambs, hardware, radios, shoes and leather goods, detailed series on bond issues and stock prices. _ _ _ 56 soaps and housekeepers' supplies, sporting goods, stationery and publishers, and mis- Series marked with an asterisk (*) were discontinued by the reporting cellaneous . 25 source; others were dropped for space reasons. ANNUAL SUPPLEMENTS were not published in 1933, 1934, and 1935 . It is important, therefore, that the special tables published in the SURVEY giving the back data on the new and revised series be retained for reference purposes. In the 1936 SUPPLEMENT it is planned to carry monthly data for the years 1932 to 1935, inclusive; monthly averages will be shown for earlier years. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE DANIEL C. ROPER, Secretary BUREAU OF FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC COMMERCE CLAUDIUS T. MURCHISON, Director SURVEY OF CURRENT BUSINESS Prepared in the DIVISION OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH H. GORDON HAYES, Chief M. JOSEPH MEEHAN, Editor Volume 15 JULY 1935 Number 7 CONTENTS SUMMARIES AND CHARTS STATISTICAL DATA—Continued Page Business indicators 2 Monthly business statistics: Page Business situation summarized 3 Business indexes 22 Comparison of principal data, 1931-35 4 Commodity prices 23 Commodity prices 5 Construction and real estate 24 Domestic trade 6 Domestic trade 25 Employment 7 Employment conditions and wages 27 Finance 8 Finance 31 Foreign trade 9 Foreign trade 36 Real estate and construction 10 Transportation and communications 37 Transportation 11 Statistics on individual industries: Survey of individual industries: Chemicals and allied products 38 Automobiles and rubber 12 Electric power and gas 41 Forest products 13 Foodstuffs and tobacco 41 Iron and steel 14 Fuels and byprod nets 45 Textiles 15 Leather and products 47 SPECIAL ARTICLE Lumber and manufactures 48 Railway and Public Utility Bond Defaults, 1929-34 16 Metal and manufactures: Iron and steel 49 STATISTICAL DATA Machinery and apparatus 51 New and revised series: Nanferrous metals and products 52 New series: Printers' Ink indexes of general, farm paper, maga- Paper and printing 53 zine, newspaper, and radio advertising; wool consumption Rubber and products 55 (apparel class); sales of domestic household refrigerators.... 19, 20 Stone, clay, and glass products 56 Revised series: Rubber, world total stocks, world total afloat and Textile products 57 afloat to the United States 20 Transportation equipment 58 Postal receipts (resumption of publication) 20 Canadian statistics 60 Weekly business statistics through June 29 21 General index Inside back cover Subscription price of the SURVEY OF CURRENT BUSINESS is 31-50 a year. Single-copy price: Monthly, 10 cents; weekly, 5 cents. Foreign subscriptions, $3, including weekly supplements. Make remittances only to Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C. 143854—35 1 SURVEY OF CURRENT BUSINESS July 1935 Business Indicators 1923-25 = 100 INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION 160 160 MANUFACTURES MINERALS (Adjusted)* /(Adjusted)9 100 1OO 4O iiinl FACTORY EMPLOYMENT AND PAYROLLS CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTS AWARDED 160 200 100 1OO EMPLOYMENT (Adjusted, *^ i l T J^*'»'*»*-*'* 40 "-PAYROLLS (Unadjusted) TOTAL FREIGHT CAR LOADINGS FREIGHT CAR LOADINGS L. C. L. 16O 16O 1OO 100 Unadjusted Adjusted Unadjusted-. Adjusted ^-^ i 40 ! I I I I I I I It I I I I 111 i 111111111J11111 4O 111111111 n I I I!I I II I I I 11 i llI I I i I I I I I DEPARTMENT STORE SALES WHOLESALE PRICES 200 160 1OO 1OO ALL COMMODITIES 40 PRODUCTS VALUE OF EXPORTS VALUE OF IMPORTS 20O 2OO 1OO 1OO Adjusted 1 1 It I III II 1 1 1 I ) 1 1 1 1 LI 1 1 1 1 n li MI i 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 !,,,„ BANK DEBITS OUTSIDE NEW YORK CITY FEDERAL RESERVE MEMBER BANK LOANS'1 2OO 16O 100 1OO Unadjusted 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 9 ADJUSTED FOR SEASONAL VARlATfON * REPORTING MEMBER BANKS July 1935 SURVEY OF CURRENT BUSINESS Business Situation Summarized USINESS activity during June has been steady, The declining trend of manufacturing production B with production resisting the seasonal decline, in May was accompanied by a recession in factory retail sales improving, and freight-car loadings ex- employment and pay rolls, these declines being the panding. This trend has been influenced to some first experienced since last November. There was a extent by special conditions, particularly the excep- net decline in employment in the industries surveyed tionally high rate of coal production. Electric-power monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but these production, however, has increased in June and the losses were offset by gains in employment on farms automobile industry has been reporting a well-sus- and public construction so that it is estimated that tained demand for cars which has kept the industry the total volume of employment was at least as high operating w^ell above the 1934 level. Lumber pro- in May as in April. duction has recovered part of the loss experienced in Declines predominated among the retail sales May. The trend of activity in the steel industry indexes for May, although the index of department- has continued downward during June. Further im- store sales increased. The seasonally adjusted indexes provement in residential building was revealed by of rural general-merchandise sales and department- the June statistics. store sales increased in June. The adjusted index of The index of industrial production declined only 1 freight-car loadings also advanced in June. point in May to 85, or 5 points below the year's high. Statistics for recent weeks reveal a further increase The decline in the index of manufacturing production in bank reserves, the gains resulting principally from reflected the reduction in automobile assemblies, as the heavy inflow of gold from abroad. Excess reserves well as declines in a number of other leading indus- of the member banks have exceeded 2}£ billion dollars, tries. Some of the industries reporting improvement with little effect on the volume of outstanding bank in May were the machine tool, cement, wool manu- loans. The growth in demand bank deposits con- facturing, rayon, steel furniture, sugar refining, and tinues, but the turn-over of the deposits has tended illuminating glassware industries.