Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization - G.17

Current Release (274 KB PDF) (ASCII)

Release Date: June 15, 2015

Industrial production decreased 0.2 percent in May after falling 0.5 percent in April. The decline in April was larger than previously reported, but the rates of change for previous months were generally revised higher, leaving the level of the index in April slightly above its initial estimate. Manufacturing output decreased 0.2 percent in May and was little changed, on net, from its level in January. In May, the index for mining moved down 0.3 percent after declining more than 1 percent per month, on average, in the previous four months. The slower rate of decrease for mining output last month was due in part to a reduced pace of decline in the index for oil and gas well drilling and servicing. The output of utilities increased 0.2 percent in May. At 105.1 percent of its 2007 average, total industrial production in May was 1.4 percent above its year-earlier level. Capacity utilization for the industrial sector decreased 0.2 percentage point in May to 78.1 percent, a rate that is 2.0 percentage points below its long-run (1972–2014) average.

Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization: Summary

Seasonally adjusted
Industrial production 2007=100 Percent change
2014
Dec.[r]
2015 2014
Dec.[r]
2015 May '14 to
May '15
Jan.[r] Feb.[r] Mar.[r] Apr.[r] May[p] Jan.[r] Feb.[r] Mar.[r] Apr.[r] May[p]
       
Total index 106.3 105.9 105.8 105.8 105.3 105.1 .0 -.4 .0 .0 -.5 -.2 1.4
Previous estimates 106.2 105.9 105.8 105.5 105.2   -.1 -.3 -.1 -.3 -.3    
       
Major market groups
Final Products 101.8 101.4 101.6 102.0 101.2 100.9 -.8 -.3 .1 .5 -.9 -.3 .7
Consumer goods 98.6 98.8 99.2 100.2 99.2 99.0 -.6 .2 .3 1.0 -.9 -.3 2.0
Business equipment 109.0 108.0 108.7 109.1 109.0 109.3 -1.3 -.9 .7 .4 -.1 .2 1.9
Nonindustrial supplies 93.3 93.4 93.4 92.6 92.9 92.9 -.2 .1 .0 -.9 .3 .0 2.2
Construction 87.8 87.3 86.8 85.4 85.9 85.6 1.2 -.5 -.6 -1.6 .6 -.3 1.9
Materials 114.9 114.2 114.0 113.9 113.4 113.2 .7 -.6 -.2 -.1 -.4 -.1 1.7
       
Major industry groups
Manufacturing (see note below) 101.9 101.2 101.0 101.4 101.5 101.3 -.1 -.7 -.2 .3 .1 -.2 1.8
Previous estimates 101.9 101.3 101.1 101.5 101.5   .0 -.6 -.2 .3 .0    
Mining 135.7 133.9 131.1 130.7 129.0 128.6 3.2 -1.4 -2.1 -.3 -1.3 -.3 -.3
Utilities 100.0 103.3 108.3 106.3 102.4 102.6 -5.0 3.3 4.9 -1.8 -3.7 .2 1.3

Capacity utilization Percent of capacity Capacity
growth
Average
1972-
2014
1988-
89
high
1990-
91
low
1994-
95
high
 
2009
low
 
2014
May
   
2014
Dec.[r]
2015 May '14 to
May '15
Jan.[r] Feb.[r] Mar.[r] Apr.[r] May[p]
       
Total industry 80.1 85.3 78.7 85.0 66.9 79.1 79.6 79.1 79.0 78.8 78.3 78.1 2.8
Previous estimates             79.5 79.2 78.9 78.6 78.2    
       
Manufacturing (see note below) 78.6 85.6 77.3 84.6 63.9 77.1 77.9 77.3 77.1 77.2 77.2 77.0 2.0
Previous estimates             78.0 77.4 77.2 77.3 77.2    
Mining 87.3 86.3 83.8 88.5 78.8 89.8 89.3 87.9 85.7 85.1 83.7 83.3 7.5
Utilities 85.9 92.9 84.3 93.3 78.5 79.5 78.0 80.6 84.4 82.9 79.8 80.0 .7
       
Stage-of-process groups
Crude 86.3 87.7 84.4 89.6 76.8 87.4 87.1 85.8 84.3 83.7 82.9 82.5 6.1
Primary and semifinished 80.8 86.5 77.9 87.7 64.2 77.4 77.7 77.8 78.3 77.7 77.2 77.0 1.9
Finished 77.1 83.4 77.4 80.6 66.8 77.1 78.0 77.5 77.2 77.8 77.4 77.2 2.0
r Revised. p Preliminary.
Market Groups

Among the major market groups, only business equipment and business supplies registered production gains in May, with increases of 0.2 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively. The production of consumer goods decreased 0.3 percent, as declines for both consumer energy products and non-energy nondurables outweighed a gain for durable consumer goods. The small advance for business equipment reflected increases in transit equipment and in information processing equipment. The output of defense and space equipment fell 1.3 percent. The output of construction supplies declined 0.3 percent, which partially reversed a gain in April. The index for materials decreased 0.1 percent in May. The output of nondurable materials fell 0.7 percent and the output of energy materials edged down, but these decreases were partially offset by a small improvement in the output of durable materials.

Industry Groups

Manufacturing output fell 0.2 percent in May, as a decrease of 0.7 percent in the output of nondurables was partially offset by a small increase in the production of durables. The largest gain among durable goods industries was recorded by motor vehicles and parts; its index increased 1.7 percent. Results for other durable goods industries were mixed, with none posting a gain or loss exceeding 0.7 percent. Almost all major nondurable goods industries registered declines, with the largest drop, 1.6 percent, occurring in the petroleum and coal products industry. The output index for other manufacturing industries (publishing and logging) moved up 0.6 percent. The decrease of 0.3 percent in mining resulted primarily from a drop in oil and gas well drilling and servicing, but it also reflected a decrease in nonmetallic mineral mining; an increase in crude oil extraction partially offset those declines.

The capacity utilization rate for manufacturing decreased 0.2 percentage point in May to 77.0 percent, a rate 1.6 percentage points below its long-run average. The operating rate for durable goods manufacturing remained steady at 76.5 percent, just a bit below its long-run average, while utilization for nondurable goods manufacturing decreased 0.6 percentage point to 79.1 percent, a rate 1.5 percentage points below its long-run average. The capacity utilization rate for other manufacturing (publishing and logging) increased to 57.8 percent, a rate more than 20 percentage points below its long-run average. Capacity utilization for mines fell 0.4 percentage point to 83.3 percent, while the operating rate for utilities increased 0.2 percentage point to 80.0 percent.

Revision of Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization

The Federal Reserve Board plans to issue its annual revision to the index of industrial production (IP) and the related measures of capacity utilization on July 21, 2015. The classification system for the industry groups will be advanced to the 2012 version of the North American Industry Classification System, and the comparison base year will be advanced to 2012. New annual benchmark data for 2012 and 2013 for manufacturing will be incorporated, as well as other annual data, including information on the mining of metallic and nonmetallic minerals (except fuels). The weights for market-group splits of the indexes will be updated with information from the 2007 benchmark input-output accounts from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The updated IP indexes will include revisions to the monthly indicator (either product data or input data) and to seasonal factors for each industry. In addition, the estimation methods for some series may be changed. Any modifications 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 through the fourth quarter of 2014 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 U.S. Department of Energy, and other organizations.

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:

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

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Last update: June 15, 2015