Economic Trends

U.S. Metalworking Machinery Orders Continued Slide in May, but Narrowed

Month-over-month orders declined for a second straight month, but to a much smaller degree than April, while year-over-year totals remain robust. Get the key figures and context here.

New U.S. orders for metal cutting, forming and fabrication machinery (manufacturing technology) totaled $584 million in May 2026 — a 1.8% from April, but a 47.8% increase year-over-year. The monthly decline was much more narrow than April’s 12.5% slide from March.

That’s according to the Association for Manufacturing Technology’s (AMT) latest Manufacturing Technology Orders Report (USMTO).

Through May, year-to-date orders of $2.77 billion were up 31.9% vs. 2025.

“While recent events have caused much trepidation in the general outlook among businesses and consumers, the U.S. economy remains on a solid footing, and robust machinery demand is cause for optimism,” the report said. “Investments in manufacturing technology signal that manufacturers expect to need additional productive capacity to meet growing demands on output. Unit orders continue to grow at a pace below that of order value growth. Some of this trend can be attributed to normal market forces that affect pricing; however, a far larger share is due to the growing demand for automation as firms attempt to increase output to match stronger demand projections amid nearly half a million current manufacturing job openings.”

The May USMTO report emphasized the following points:

Since December 2025, Contract machine shops — the largest customer of manufacturing technology — hhave been faling behind the growth of all orders. May contract machine orders were nearly 10% below the average of the three prior months
Much of the recent order growth came from capital investments in the aerospace industry. Despite a May pullback in orders, additional capacity needs emerging from expanding space production will drive additional machinery demand.
U.S. economic growth in the first quarter of 2026 was accelerated by outsized demand for industrial equipment, largely attributed to constructing and equipping data centers. May 2026 orders of manufacturing technology placed by industrial machinery manufacturers reached their highest value since November 2017.

“Forecasts of manufacturing technology orders have anticipated flat to slightly declining activity in 2026,” the report continued. “Through the first five months, orders are up nearly 32% and trending well ahead of a typical lead-up to IMTS, which should give an additional boost to orders in the latter half of the year.”