In October 2024, the value of the Service Purchasing Managers' Index in the United States stood at 56. An indicator of the economic health of the service sector, the Services Purchasing Managers' Index is based on four major indicators: business activity, new orders, employment, and supplier deliveries. An index value above 50 percent indicates a positive development in the service sector, whereas a value below 50 percent indicates a negative situation. Purchasing Managers' Index The Purchasing Manager's Index is a strong indicator of an economic sector's health. The PMI is based on a survey that is sent to more than 400 companies in 19 primary industries, which are weighted by their overall contribution to the nation's GDP. The industries are organized into economic sectors to construct a PMI relevant to each sector, such as construction being in the manufacturing sector. In 2021, the construction industry added 958.8 billion U.S. dollars to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States. A high contribution to the GDP by an industry generally helps increase the value of the sector's PMI. As of April 2024, the manufacturing PMI indicated a negative situation at 49.2. The Service Sector The service sector, or tertiary sector, is the section of the economy that deals with the production of services rather than the production of goods or extraction of materials. Within the service sector are many industries such as banking and financial services, construction, education, transportation, hospitality, communication, real estate, information technology, legal services, and more. Unlike the Manufacturing PMI, the Service PMI is based on only four major indicators: business activity, new orders, employment, and supplier deliveries. As a sector that largely relies on human interaction, the service sector was particularly affected by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Services Employment Index, which shows the employment indicator of the Service PMI, was trending upwards over the summer months of 2022. As of March 2023 the SEI decreased to 51.3.

In October 2024, the value of the Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) in the United States stood at 46.5. An indicator of the economic health of the manufacturing sector, the Purchasing Managers' Index is based on five major indicators: new orders, inventory levels, production, supplier deliveries and the employment environment. An index value above 50 percent indicates a positive development in the manufacturing sector, whereas a value below 50 percent indicates a negative situation.

In October 2024, the value of the Manufacturing Supplier Deliveries Index in the United States stood at 52, a decrease from the previous month. An index value above 50 percent indicates a positive development in the manufacturing sector supplier deliveries, whereas a value below 50 percent indicates a negative situation.

In February 2025, the Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) in China resided at about 50.2 percent. An indicator of the economic health of the manufacturing sector, the PMI is based on five major indicators: new orders, inventory levels, production, supplier deliveries, and the employment environment. An index value above 50 percent indicates a positive development in the industrial sector, whereas a value below 50 percent indicates a negative situation. The PMI as a major economic indicator The Purchasing Managers' Index was first introduced by the US-based Institute of Supply Management in 1948. It has become one of the most widely used and closely watched indicators of business activities worldwide. The PMI is not only an apt indicator for manufacturing growth, it also supports interest rate decisions of central bank institutions. PMI figures around the globe were dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In the Euro area, the PMI recovered from a considerable drop in April 2020, regaining pre-crisis level in June. In the United States, the monthly PMI indicated an even better improvement from low values in April and March. Recent PMI development in China As is shown in the graph at hand, the PMI of China as the world’s second-largest economy dropped considerably in February 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. In March, the index indicated a striking rebound and ranged at a level slightly above 50 index points afterwards. During 2021, the index was characterized by a slightly downward trend. In 2022, the index displayed an unstable development with two significant dips in April and December, finally concluding with a strong rebound in January 2023. The non-manufacturing PMI in China displayed a similar development.

Star formation activity throughout the Galactic disk depends on the thermal and dynamical state of the interstellar gas, which in turn depends on heating and cooling rates, modulated by the gravitational potential and shock and turbulent pressures. Molecular cloud formation, and thus the star formation, may be regulated by pressures in the interstellar medium (ISM). To understand these processes we need information about the properties of the diffuse atomic and diffuse molecular gas clouds, and Photon Dominated Regions (PDR). An important tracer of these regions is the CII line at 158 microns (1900.5 GHz). We propose a pencilbeam survey of CII with HIFI band 7b, based on deep integrations and systematic sparse sampling of the Galactic disk plus selected targets, totaling over 900 lines of sight. We will detect both emission and, against the bright inner Galaxy and selected continuum sources, absorption lines. These spectra will provide the astronomical community with a large rich statistical database of the diffuse cloud properties throughout the Galaxy for understanding the Milky Way ISM and, by extension, other galaxies. It will be extremely valuable for determining the properties of the atomic gas, the role of barometric pressure and turbulence in cloud evolution, and the properties of the interface between the atomic and molecular clouds. The CII line is one of the major ISM cooling lines and is present throughout the Galactic plane. It is the strongest farIR emission line in the Galaxy, with a total luminosity about a 1000 times that of the CO J10 line. Combined with other data, it can be used to determine density, pressure, and radiation environment in gas clouds, and PDRs, and their dynamics via velocity fields. HSO is the best opportunity over the next several years to probe the ISM in this tracer and will provide a template for largescale surveys with dedicated small telescopes and future s trun [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]

In October 2024, the value of the Manufacturing Backlog of Orders Index in the United States stood at 42.3 percent. The Backlog of Orders Index represents the share of orders that businesses have received but have yet to start or finish. An increasing index value usually indicates growth in business but shows that output is below its maximum potential.