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 percent lower than previously reported, while the estimate for August, a decrease of 0.7 percent, was 0.2 percent 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 0.3 percent. 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 0.5 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 was1.6 percent above its year-earlier level. Capacity utilization for the industrial sector increased 0.2 percent in September to 76 percent, a rate that is 3.9 percentage points below its long-run (1972–2016) average.
Capacity utilization for manufacturing was unchanged at 75.1 percent in September, a rate that is 3.3 percent below its long-run average. Utilization for durables increased 0.7 percent to74.9 percent, while the operating rate for nondurables fell 0.7 percent to 76.3 percent. The operating rate for mining edged up 0.1 percent to 83.5 percent, and the rate for utilities rose 1.1 percent to 74.8 percent.
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