Industrial production and capacity utilization data for September 2017 are now available.Industrial production rose 0.3 percent in September. The rates of change for July and August were notably revised; the current estimate for July, a decrease of 0.1 percent, was 0.5 percentage point lower than previously reported, while the estimate for August, a decrease of 0.7 percent, was 0.2 percentage point higher than before. The estimates for manufacturing, mining, and utilities were each revised lower in July. The continued effects of Hurricane Harvey and, to a lesser degree, the effects of Hurricane Irma combined to hold down the growth in total production in September by 1/4 percentage point.[1] For the third quarter as a whole, industrial production fell 1.5 percent at an annual rate; excluding the effects of the hurricanes, the index would have risen at least 1/2 percent. Manufacturing output edged up 0.1 percent in September but fell 2.2 percent at an annual rate in the third quarter. The indexes for mining and utilities in September rose 0.4 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively. At 104.6 percent of its 2012 average, total industrial production in September was 1.6 percent above its year-earlier level. Capacity utilization for the industrial sector increased 0.2 percentage point in September to 76.0 percent, a rate that is 3.9 percentage points below its long-run (1972-2016) average.
A technical Q&A discussing the effect of Hurricane Harvey on industrial production for August will be published on the Board's website at https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/g17_technical_qa.htm#hurricaneharvey2017. Additional discussion about the estimation process is available at https://doi.org/10.17016/2380-7172.2086.]]>
