Daily News
From Home Furnishing Business
Smith Leonard: Furniture Orders Down 41% in May
August 2,
2022 by Laurie Northington in Business Strategy, Industry 
New orders in May were down 41% from May 2021, but May 2021 orders were up 47% over May 2020. Year-to-date, new orders were down 25% from last year, but the year-to-date numbers were 2% higher than in 2019, according to a report by the Smith Leonard accounting and consulting firm.
The firm’s monthly survey of residential furniture manufacturers and distributors showed Shipments were much better, up 10% over May 2021 and up 7% year to date. Shipments were up for 76% of the participants year to date.
For the past few months, participants have taken the time to clean up their backlogs. In addition, recently there have been several companies who have cancelled orders due to the slowdown in business at retail.
Receivable levels remain in good shape, while inventories were up 41% over May last year and up 9% from April. The number of factory and warehouse employees was down 1% from April but this does not reflect some of the recently announced layoffs.