BUSINESS
PROCESS i f y H U S T H l E S * OUTLOOK July slumped mainly by comparison with year before . . . Luxury businesses sfill boom . . . Steel for ord nance 2 0 times greater . . . Detergents lower Λ CONSIDERABLE slump in July has by -*** now been noted in several quarter.«». Perhaps first to recognize this was the Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System, w h o have predicted that the in dex figure for industrial production will have been shown down to around 215 (19:35-1939 equals 100) Ironi 223 in June. They call this more than a seasonal decline. Last week we noted here that July sales by Sears, Roebuck & Co. were 23.2 r r under those of a year lie*fore, the first time in 20 months that the current month had shown up unfavorably with t h e year before. Now come somewhat similar figures showing that July sales of leading mail order and chain stores last month showed a composite loss of 6.3'r from July 1950, according to a compilation of 44 com panies m a d e by the New York Times. Mail order stores were off 23.4'.ν, automotive-variety units 2 1 . 7 % and gen eral merchandise stores 7 . 7 % . On t h e other h a n d grocery chains recorded the sharpest gain, 15.7 V*.
of steel was almost 60,968,000 tons, a record. From t h e D e p a r t m e n t of Labor comes t h e cheering news that in 24 out of 26 manufacturing and non-manufacturing in dustries output per m a n hour rose berween 11)49 and 1950. in 16 »1 those industries
Seven Months' Figures Are Better However these figures a r e not as serious as they might seem at first glance. July 1950 was a month of unusually brisk business, there having been much scare buying after t h e outbreak of hostilities in Korea. Therefore a more representative set of figures pertains to the first seven months of 1951 and here, for these 44 companies, an llr/
