New orders of metalworking machinery, measured by the U.S. Manufacturing Technology Orders Report published by AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology, totaled $444.9 million in April 2025. This marked a 12.7% decline from March 2025 and a nearly 40% increase from April 2024. Machinery orders in 2025 placed through April totaled $1.69 billion, a 17.8% increase over the first four months of 2024.
Typically, machinery orders in April decline by 21% from March, which tends to see outsized order volumes due to many machinery manufacturers ending their fiscal year. This year’s March-April decline of 12.7% represents the lowest drop since April 2022. Some of this strong demand could be attributed to front-running the coming tariffs on imported goods and expectations of increased demand for domestically sourced manufactured goods and components. Despite declines in overall manufacturing output, machinery manufacturers increased production by 0.3% in April, marking a continuation of the upward trend that began in October 2024.
Orders of manufacturing technology from contract machine shops showed signs of continuing demand, declining by only 6.3% from March to April 2025; the overall market fell by more than twice that number. Primary metal manufacturers increased orders to their highest level since February 2024. If the recent tariff increase on metals remains, orders from this sector could increase as domestic suppliers attempt to meet new demand with limited available capacity. Orders from aerospace manufacturers dropped by nearly half from their March 2025 levels but remained slightly above their 2024 monthly average.
Demand held the industry’s upward momentum through April, and learning the actual impact of recent tariff announcements could take some time due to their erratic implementation. The National Association of Manufacturers’ recently released Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey showed a steep decline in respondents reporting an optimistic economic outlook compared to their previous survey. Despite this waning optimism, the survey also reported that capital investments are still expected to rise modestly over the next 12 months, albeit at a lower level than projected earlier in the year.
