Industrial production edged up 0.1% in February after declining 0.5% in January according to the Federal Reserve. The output of manufacturing rose 0.8% and the index for mining climbed 2.2%. Both gains partly reflected recoveries from weather-related declines in January. Total industrial production in February was 0.2% below its year-earlier level, at 102.3% of its 2017 average. Capacity utilization for the industrial sector remained at 78.3%, a rate that is 1.3 percentage points (pp) below its long-run (1972-2023) average.
The output for most major market groups moved up with the exception of the index for consumer goods, which dropped 1.4%, driven by a utilities-related decrease of 8.6% in the index for consumer energy.
Manufacturing output rose 0.8% in February after declining 1.1% in January. Durable manufacturing increased 1%, and the index for nondurable output increased 0.7%. The output of other manufacturing (publishing and logging) inched down 0.1%. Among durables, notable increases were recorded in wood products (2.4%), miscellaneous manufacturing (2.3%), and motor vehicles and parts (1.8%). Nondurables also experienced widespread growth, with the largest increase in the output of chemicals (1.6%), printing and support (1.5%), and paper (1.1%).
Mining output climbed 2.2% after falling 2.9% in January. Conversely, the output of utilities fell 7.5% because of warmer-than-typical temperatures, and the indexes for electric and natural gas utilities decreased 6.5% and 13%, respectively.
Capacity utilization for manufacturing increased 0.6 pp to 77% in February, a rate that is 1.2 pp below its long-run average. The operating rate for mining moved up 2.1 pp to 93.8%, 7.3 pp above its long-run average. However, the operating rate for utilities fell 5.7 pp to 67.8%, well below its long-run average of 84.4%.
Read the Fed release.
