manufacturing activity in the central us remained mostly steady in may and expectations for future activity stayed flat the federal reserve bank of kansas city said thursday that the tenth district manufacturing surveys composite index was minus 1 in may up from minus 10 in april any reading below zero suggests activity contracted compared with the previous month economists polled by the wall street journal expected the manufacturing composite index to improve to minus 9 the survey gauges manufacturing activity in the western third of missouri all of kansas colorado nebraska oklahoma and wyoming and the northern half of new mexico the increase from last month was driven by both durable and nondurable goods especially by paper primary metal and miscellaneous durable goods manufacturing the kansas city fed said the production index rose to minus 2 in may from minus 21 a month earlier the new orders index rose to minus 14 from minus 21 while the shipments index rose to minus 1 from minus 13 see some stabilization and even softening of the underlying commodities one of the respondents of the survey said the employment index rose to 7 from minus 1 in a sign that firms continued to expand their workforce price pressures persisted albeit at a much lower level than a month ago the index of prices paid for raw materials fell to 16 from 32 while the index of prices received for finished products fell to 16 from 21 prices for raw materials have cooled significantly and prices for finished goods also eased somewhat over the last month and last year prices cooled significantly over the last month and year and are expected to cool further said chad wilkerson senior vice president at the federal reserve bank of kansas city firms were little optimistic about the shortterm outlook the future composite indexwhich gauges the outlook in the next six monthswas modestly at 2