Bailout

Industrial Production, Capacity Utilization Increase in January

By Anonymous

Industrial production increased 0.9 percent in January following a gain of 0.7 percent in December. Manufacturing production rose 1.0 percent in January, with increases for most of its major components, while the indexes for both utilities and mining advanced 0.7 percent. At 101.1 percent of its 2002 average, output in January was 0.9 percent above its year-earlier level. The capacity utilization rate for total industry rose 0.7 percentage point to 72.6 percent, a rate 8.0 percentage points below its average from 1972 to 2009.

This graph shows Capacity Utilization. This series is up 6% from the record low set in June (the series starts in 1967).

Capacity utilization at 72.6% is still far below normal - and far below the the pre-recession levels of 80.5% in November 2007.

Note: y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the change.

Also - this is the highest level for industrial production since Dec 2008, but production is still 10.1% below the pre-recession levels at the end of 2007.

Full post as published by Calculated Risk on February 17, 2010 (boomark / email).