Industrial production and capacity utilization data for September 2010 are now available.
Industrial production decreased 0.2 percent in September after having increased 0.2 percent in August. The indexes both for manufacturing and for manufacturing excluding motor vehicles and parts also moved down 0.2 percent in September. Production at mines moved up 0.7 percent, while the output of utilities fell 1.9 percent. For the third quarter as a whole, total industrial production rose at an annual rate of 4.8 percent after having advanced about 7 percent in both the first and second quarters of this year. The index for manufacturing decelerated sharply in the third quarter: After having jumped at an annual rate of 9.1 percent in the second quarter, factory output gained 3.6 percent in the third quarter. At 93.2 percent of its 2007 average, total industrial production in September was 5.4 percent above its year-earlier level. The capacity utilization rate for total industry edged down to 74.7 percent, a rate 4.2 percentage points above the rate from a year earlier but 5.9 percentage points below its average from 1972 to 2009.
