INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION AND CAPACITY UTILIZATION
[Annual Revision Notice Below]

Industrial production increased 0.8 percent in April after having risen 0.2 percent in March. The rates of change for both January and March were revised up, but the rate of change for February was revised down; nevertheless, the cumulative change over those months was only slightly lower than previously reported. Manufacturing output climbed 1.0 percent in April for a second consecutive month and was 6.0 percent above its year-earlier level. The increases in manufacturing continued to be broadly based across industries. Outside of manufacturing, the output of mines rose 1.4 percent, and the output of utilities decreased 1.3 percent. At 102.3 percent of its 2002 average, total industrial output in April was 5.2 percent above its year-earlier level. The capacity utilization rate for total industry advanced 0.6 percentage point to 73.7 percent, a rate 6.9 percentage points below its average from 1972 to 2009, but 4.5 percentage points above the rate from a year earlier.

INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION AND CAPACITY UTILIZATION: SUMMARY
Seasonally adjusted

Industrial production	2002=100						Percent change
	2009		2010				2009		2010				Apr. '09 to Apr. '10
	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	99.6	100.2	101.4	101.2	101.5	102.3	.7	.7	1.2	-.1	.2	.8	5.2
Previous estimates	99.6	100.3	101.2	101.5	101.6		.7	.7	1.0	.3	.1
Major market groups
Final Products	102.9	103.7	105.5	104.7	105.2	105.7	.0	.8	1.7	-.8	.5	.5	4.9
Consumer goods	100.3	101.0	102.6	101.3	101.4	101.6	.0	.7	1.7	-1.3	.1	.2	3.8
Business equipment	109.3	110.6	112.3	112.6	113.9	115.1	-.3	1.2	1.5	.3	1.1	1.0	6.0
Nonindustrial supplies	91.0	91.4	91.7	91.3	91.2	92.4	.7	.4	.4	-.5	-.1	1.3	1.4
Construction	81.6	79.3	80.4	79.9	82.1	84.3	1.8	-2.9	1.4	-.6	2.7	2.8	2.9
Materials	99.7	100.4	101.2	101.9	101.9	102.9	1.5	.6	.8	.7	.0	1.0	7.0
Major industry groups
Manufacturing (see note below)	98.6	98.5	99.4	99.4	100.4	101.4	1.1	-.1	1.0	-.1	1.0	1.0	6.0
Previous estimates	98.6	98.5	99.4	99.6	100.5		1.1	-.1	.9	.2	.9
Mining	98.6	97.0	99.5	101.4	102.8	104.3	1.9	-1.6	2.5	1.9	1.4	1.4	8.5
Utilities	104.1	112.0	113.7	111.8	105.1	103.7	-2.5	7.7	1.5	-1.7	-6.1	-1.3	-2.6

Market Groups

The output of most major market groups rose in April. The production of consumer goods increased 0.2 percent, the result of higher output of consumer nondurables. The output of consumer durables was unchanged; declines in automotive products and in home electronics offset advances in appliances, furniture, and carpeting and in miscellaneous goods. The production of consumer nondurable goods moved up 0.3 percent, with the output of non-energy nondurables rising 0.3 percent and the output of consumer energy products gaining 0.5 percent. All major categories of consumer non-energy nondurables recorded increases, although most of the gains were small; the exception was paper products, which moved up 1.0 percent. For consumer nondurable energy products, higher fuel production was partly offset by a decrease in residential sales by utilities, which moved down for a third consecutive month.

The output of business equipment increased 1.0 percent in April, a pace on par with the average monthly gain during the first quarter of the year. The index for information processing equipment rose 0.5 percent, and the index for industrial and other equipment climbed 2.3 percent. Elsewhere in business equipment, the output of transit equipment dropped back 1.9 percent following an increase of 2.0 percent in March. The decline in April primarily resulted from lower output of civilian aircraft and of medium and heavy trucks.

In April, the output of defense and space equipment moved up for the fourth consecutive month; the index for this sector rose 0.5 percent and was 8.0 percent above its year-earlier level.

Within nonindustrial supplies, the output of construction supplies advanced 2.8 percent in April after a similarly sized gain in March. The production of business supplies rose 0.7 percent in April after having fallen, on net, since the start of the year.

The output of materials to be further processed in the industrial sector increased 1.0 percent in April after having been unchanged in March; the index was 7.0 percent higher in April than its year-earlier level. Solid gains in the production of textile, paper, and chemical materials helped lift the output of nondurable materials, which rose 1.1 percent in April. Durable materials climbed 1.6 percent, as higher output of equipment parts and other durable materials more than offset a small decrease in the output of consumer parts. The production of energy materials edged down 0.1 percent, as the decline in utilities slightly more than offset increases in coal mining and in natural gas extraction.

Industry Groups

Manufacturing output rose 1.0 percent in April. Capacity utilization for manufacturing moved up 0.8 percentage point to 70.8 percent, a rate 8.4 percentage points below its average from 1972 to 2009, but 5.7 percentage points above its trough in June 2009.

The production index for durable goods advanced 1.1 percent in April; all major categories of durables strengthened with the exception of motor vehicles and parts and aerospace and miscellaneous transportation equipment. Gains of 2.0 percent or more were recorded for nonmetallic mineral products; primary metals; machinery; and electrical equipment, appliances, and components.

Nondurable manufacturing climbed 1.0 percent in April. The output of petroleum and coal products jumped 3.6 percent, the index for plastics and rubber products expanded 2.7 percent, and the production of paper climbed 2.4 percent. The indexes for textile and product mills, for printing and support, and for chemicals also increased, while the indexes for food, beverage, and tobacco products and for apparel and leather were little changed.

In April, mining output advanced 1.4 percent, and capacity utilization rose to 90.7 percent, a rate 3.2 percentage points above its average for the period from 1972 to 2009. The gain in mining production mainly reflected increases in coal mining and in stone, sand, and gravel quarrying, as well as in support activities for mining. With another month of above-normal temperatures in April, the output of utilities declined 1.3 percent after having dropped 6.1 percent in March. Capacity utilization for utilities decreased 1.1 percentage points in April to 77.4 percent, a rate 9.2 percentage points below its average for the period from 1972 to 2009.

Capacity utilization rates in April at industries grouped by stage of process were as follows: At the crude stage, utilization increased 1.3 percentage points to 89.0 percent, a rate 2.5 percentage points above its average for the period from 1972 to 2009; at the primary and semifinished stages, utilization rose 0.8 percentage point to 70.2 percent, a rate 11.4 percentage points below its long-run average; and at the finished stage, utilization edged up 0.2 percentage point to 71.8 percent, a rate 5.7 percentage points below its long-run average.

Revision of Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization

The Federal Reserve Board plans to issue on June 25, 2010, the annual revision to the index of industrial production (IP) and the related measures of capacity and capacity utilization. The revised IP indexes will incorporate detailed data from the 2007 Economic Census and the 2008 Annual Survey of Manufactures, both conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. Data from selected editions of the Census Bureau's 2008 and 2009 Current Industrial Reports will also be incorporated, as will annual data from the U.S. Geological Survey regarding metallic and nonmetallic minerals (except fuels) for 2008. The updating will include revisions to the monthly indicator (either product data or input data) and to seasonal factors for each industry. The annual revision will also introduce changes in the estimation methods for some series. Any changes to the methods for estimating the output of an industry will affect the index from 1972 to the present.

Capacity and capacity utilization will be revised to incorporate data from the Census Bureau's Quarterly Survey of Plant Capacity, which covers manufacturing, along with new data on capacity from the U.S. Geological Survey, the Department of Energy, and other organizations.

Once the revision is published, it will be available on the Board's website at www.federalreserve.gov/releases/G17. The revised data will also be 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