Economist sees signs of manufacturing slowdown in Greenville-Anderson.

Manufacturing jobs have been on the decline for the last few months in the Greenville-Anderson-Mauldin metropolitan statistical area. Hiring is up in the sector that includes temporary workers. Meanwhile, exports are down.

It's not much to go on yet, says economist Bruce Yandle, but it's raising concerns about the effect a trade war with China is having on the economy. Yandle is Distinguished Adjunct Fellow for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and former Clemson University dean.

"Unfortunately, with limited data on the Upstate or even for the state in some cases, I cannot offer excellent answers," Yandle said in an email. "But first consider manufacturing employment growth for Greenville-Anderson-Mauldin. The growth rate has been negative job losses since May 2019 and continuing negative through July, which is the latest reading."

Statewide, it's different, he pointed out. Manufacturing employment has been growing, including in Spartanburg County, where more than 10,000 people work in the BMW Manufacturing plant.

"For Greenville-Anderson-Mauldin, I watch the growth of employment in professional and business services, which includes temporary workers, as a proxy for pessimism about the future for manufacturing," Yandle wrote. "Positive growth indicates pessimism if manufacturing employment is falling. The growth in professional and business services employment for the G-A-M (Greenville-Anderson-Mauldin) area turned strong positive in July."

Yandle said the national purchasing managers' index, better known as the PMI, went into negative growth territory when the August numbers were posted, affected significantly by a sharp decline in exports. And exporting industries are the ones most affected by the U.S.-China trade war, he said.

"Probing a bit on this point, I checked data on shipments through the Port of Charleston," he said."Export shipments were down 2.3% in June, relative to the month before.For the year, January 2019-June 2019, export shipments are down 2.5%.But get this, vehicle shipments read BMW are down 15.9%, January through June 2019."

BMW and Mercedes together accounted for 57% of the 230,115 vehicles exported to China from the U.S. in 2018, according to Automotive News, and X-models built in Spartanburg were 12% of the company's China sales.

Phil DiIanni, corporate communications manager for BMW of North America, said he does not yet have export numbers for 2019, but added that an export decline may not be caused...