Industrial production and capacity utilization data for March 2015 are now available.Industrial production decreased 0.6 percent in March after increasing 0.1 percent in February. For the first quarter of 2015 as a whole, industrial production declined at an annual rate of 1.0 percent, the first quarterly decrease since the second quarter of 2009. The decline last quarter resulted from a drop in oil and gas well drilling and servicing of more than 60 percent at an annual rate and from a decrease in manufacturing production of 1.2 percent. In March, manufacturing output moved up 0.1 percent for its first monthly gain since November; however, factory output in January is now estimated to have fallen 0.6 percent, about twice the size of the previously reported decline. The index for mining decreased 0.7 percent in March. The output of utilities fell 5.9 percent to largely reverse a similarly sized increase in February, which was related to unseasonably cold temperatures. At 105.2 percent of its 2007 average, total industrial production in March was 2.0 percent above its level of a year earlier. Capacity utilization for the industrial sector decreased 0.6 percentage point in March to 78.4 percent, a rate that is 1.7 percentage points below its long-run (1972-2014) average.]]>
