INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION AND CAPACITY UTILIZATION

[Annual Revision Notice Below]

Industrial production decreased 0.5 percent in April after having fallen 1.7 percent in March. Production in manufacturing declined 0.3 percent in April and was 16.0 percent below its recent peak in December 2007. The decreases in manufacturing in April remained broadly based across industries. Outside of manufacturing, the output of mines fell 3.2 percent, as oil and gas field drilling and support activities continued to drop. The output of utilities moved up 0.4 percent. At 97.1 percent of its 2002 average, industrial output in April was 12.5 percent below its year-earlier level. The capacity utilization rate for total industry fell further in April, to 69.1 percent, a low over the history of this series, which begins in 1967.

INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION AND CAPACITY UTILIZATION: SUMMARY
Seasonally adjusted

Industrial production	2002=100						Percent change
	2008		2009				2008		2009				Apr. '08 to Apr. '09
	Nov.[r]	Dec.[r]	Jan.[r]	Feb.[r]	Mar.[r]	Apr.[p]	Nov.[r]	Dec.[r]	Jan.[r]	Feb.[r]	Mar.[r]	Apr.[p]
Total index	104.8	102.4	100.3	99.3	97.6	97.1	-1.3	-2.2	-2.1	-1.0	-1.7	-.5	-12.5
Previous estimates	104.8	102.5	100.3	98.8	97.4		-1.2	-2.2	-2.1	-1.5	-1.5
Major market groups
Final Products	106.7	106.2	103.5	102.7	101.6	101.3	-.2	-.5	-2.5	-.8	-1.1	-.3	-8.8
Consumer goods	102.0	100.6	98.6	98.4	98.1	98.1	-.9	-1.4	-2.0	-.2	-.3	.0	-6.6
Business equipment	117.6	121.0	116.3	114.5	111.2	110.6	2.4	2.9	-3.9	-1.6	-2.8	-.6	-13.9
Nonindustrial supplies	99.8	96.6	94.9	92.7	91.0	90.4	-2.4	-3.2	-1.8	-2.3	-1.9	-.6	-15.4
Construction	93.6	89.3	86.1	85.0	82.6	81.7	-4.2	-4.7	-3.6	-1.3	-2.9	-1.1	-20.0
Materials	104.7	101.0	99.2	98.5	96.2	95.5	-2.0	-3.5	-1.8	-.8	-2.3	-.7	-15.0
Major industry groups
Manufacturing (see note below)	103.6	100.7	98.0	97.9	95.8	95.5	-2.2	-2.9	-2.7	-.1	-2.1	-.3	-14.5
Previous estimates	103.7	100.9	98.1	97.5	95.8		-2.1	-2.8	-2.7	-.6	-1.7
Mining	105.4	103.4	102.9	101.6	99.0	95.8	1.8	-1.9	-.5	-1.2	-2.6	-3.2	-8.6
Utilities	109.1	111.3	111.5	103.8	105.7	106.2	1.9	2.0	.2	-6.9	1.9	.4	-3.2

Market Groups

The output of most major market groups fell in April, although several categories recorded gains. The production of consumer goods was unchanged, as an increase in consumer durables was offset by a small decline in nondurables. The output of consumer durables increased 0.8 percent, with advances in automotive products; appliances, furniture, and carpeting; and miscellaneous goods. A decrease in the output of home electronics slightly offset those gains. The production of automotive products increased for a third consecutive month, as motor vehicle assemblies continued to move up from the exceptionally low levels earlier this year. The production of consumer nondurable goods moved down 0.2 percent in April; a decline of 0.5 percent in non-energy nondurables more than offset a gain in consumer energy products. All major categories of consumer non-energy nondurables fell; the index for consumer paper products posted a particularly large decrease, primarily because of declines in publishing.

The output of business equipment decreased 0.6 percent in April after monthly declines that averaged 2-3/4 percent in the first three months of the year. The declines in the production of both information processing equipment and industrial and other equipment moderated in April. The index for information processing equipment edged down 0.3 percent, and the index for industrial and other equipment moved down 0.6 percent. Elsewhere in business equipment, the output of transit equipment dropped 0.9 percent in April, primarily as a result of lower output of civilian aircraft.

The output of defense and space equipment was unchanged in April; production in this sector has remained little changed, on net, since the third quarter of 2007.

The output of construction supplies decreased 1.1 percent in April after a drop of 2.9 percent in March. Lower output of architectural and structural metals and stone mining and quarrying was the primary contributor to the decline in April in the production of construction supplies. A further reduction in the output of printing contributed to a decrease of 0.4 percent in the production of business supplies.

The output of materials to be further processed in the industrial sector decreased 0.7 percent in April; the index was 15 percent lower than its year-earlier level. Gains in textile, paper, and chemical production helped lift the output of nondurable materials, which rose 0.3 percent in April. Durable materials, in contrast, dropped 0.9 percent, as the output index for equipment parts and for other durable materials moved down. The production of energy materials fell 1.5 percent; a decrease in coal mining as well as a drop in oil and gas field services contributed to the weakness in this sector.

Industry Groups

Manufacturing output declined 0.3 percent in April after falling 2.1 percent in March. The factory operating rate edged down 0.1 percentage point to 65.7 percent in April. The production index for durable goods decreased 0.3 percent, with declines in most categories partially offset by gains in the production of wood products, nonmetallic mineral products, motor vehicles and parts, and miscellaneous manufacturing. The production of nondurable goods edged down 0.1 percent. The production indexes for paper products and for petroleum and coal products advanced, but the indexes for printing and support and for apparel and leather fell substantially; output indexes for other nondurables industries were either unchanged or fell slightly. Production for the other manufacturing category, which consists of publishing and logging, fell 2.6 percent.

The output of utilities moved up 0.4 percent in April with gains in both electric and natural gas utilities. The operating rate for utilities moved up 0.2 percentage point to 80.7 percent, yet remained below its 1972-2008 average. The output index for mining dropped 3.2 percent in April, and its utilization rate fell to 82.5 percent, roughly 5 percentage points below its 1972-2008 average.

Capacity utilization rates in April at industries grouped by stage of process were as follows: At the crude stage, utilization dropped 0.9 percentage point to 78.5 percent, a rate 8.1 percentage points below its 1972-2008 average; at the primary and semifinished stages, utilization dropped 0.2 percentage point to 66.7 percent, a rate 15.3 percentage points below its long-run average; and at the finished stage, utilization slipped 0.2 percentage point to 67.9 percent, a rate 9.8 percentage points below its long-run average.

Revision of Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization

The Federal Reserve Board released its annual revision to the index of industrial production (IP) and the related measures of capacity utilization on March 27, 2009. The revision affected the data from January 1972 through February 2009, with most of the changes for the period beginning in 2004 (the index levels for IP, but not the rates of change, may have been changed before 1972 to maintain consistency with the revised indexes for 1972 and after). The revised IP indexes incorporated data from selected editions of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2007 Current Industrial Reports. Detailed data from the 2007 Economic Census, however, were not available. Annual data from the U.S. Geological Survey regarding metallic and nonmetallic minerals (except fuels) for 2007 were incorporated. Utilization rates were updated to incorporate data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Quarterly Survey of Plant Capacity through 2008 as well as data from other government and trade sources.

The published revision release and revised data are available on the Board's website at www.federalreserve.gov/releases/G17. The revised data are also available through the website of the Department of Commerce. Further information on the revision can be obtained from the Board's Industrial Output Section (telephone number 202-452-3197).

Note. The statistics in this release cover output, capacity, and capacity utilization in the U.S. industrial sector, which is defined by the Federal Reserve to comprise manufacturing, mining, and electric and gas utilities. Mining is defined as all industries in sector 21 of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS); electric and gas utilities are those in NAICS sectors 2211 and 2212. Manufacturing comprises NAICS manufacturing industries (sector 31-33) plus the logging industry and the newspaper, periodical, book, and directory publishing industries. Logging and publishing are classified elsewhere in NAICS (under agriculture and information respectively), but historically they were considered to be manufacturing and were included in the industrial sector under the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system. In December 2002 the Federal Reserve reclassified all its industrial output data from the SIC system to NAICS.

G.17 Release Tables:

Ascii	Screen reader	Summary: Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization
Chart		Chart 1: Industrial Production, Capacity, and Capacity Utilization
Chart		Chart 2: Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization
Chart		Chart 3: Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization, High Technology Industries
Ascii	Screen reader	Table 1: Industrial Production: Market and Industry Groups (percent change)
Ascii	Screen reader	Table 2: Industrial Production: Special Aggregates and Selected Detail (percent change)
Ascii	Screen reader	Table 3: Motor Vehicle Assemblies
Ascii	Screen reader	Table 4: Industrial Production Indexes: Market and Industry Group Summary
Ascii	Screen reader	Table 5: Industrial Production Indexes: Special Aggregates
Ascii	Screen reader	Table 6: Diffusion Indexes of Industrial Production
Ascii	Screen reader	Table 7: Capacity Utilization: Manufacturing, Mining, and Utilities
Ascii	Screen reader	Table 8: Industrial Capacity: Manufacturing, Mining, and Utilities (percent change)
Ascii	Screen reader	Table 9: Industrial Production: Gross Value of Products and Nonindustrial Supplies
Ascii	Screen reader	Table 10: Gross-Value-Weighted Industrial Production: Stage-of-Process Groups
Ascii	Screen reader	Table 11: Historical Statistics for IP, Capacity, and Utilization: Total Industry
Ascii	Screen reader	Table 12: Historical Statistics for IP, Capacity, and Utilization: Manufacturing
Ascii	Screen reader	Table 13: Historical Statistics for IP, Capacity, and Utilization: Total Industry excluding Selected High-Technology Industries
Ascii	Screen reader	Table 14: Historical Statistics for IP, Capacity, and Utilization: Manufacturing excluding Selected High-Technology Industries