Factory Orders Fall by 0.1% in August

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actory orders fell by 0.1% in August on lower demand for aircraft, the Commerce Department said Monday.

The drop to $370.5 billion in orders followed a 1.7% increase in July, which was pushed by strong aircraft orders, Bloomberg News reported. Economists cited a 1.3% gain outside of transportation, the largest since March, Bloomberg said.

Rising orders can translate to more demand for trucking services because factories use trucks to ship raw materials and finished products.

New orders for consumer goods were up 1.4% in August, the highest level in three months, Bloomberg said. The gains included 7.1% for household appliances, 4.6% for electronics and 1.4% for motor vehicles and parts.

Manufacturers might have added as many as 10,000 jobs in September, the seventh gain in eight months, according to a Bloomberg survey. But the economy still had lost 2.6 million factory jobs since March 2001, at the start of an eight-month recession, Bloomberg said.