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Industrial production and capacity utilization did come in right where economists were expecting, but the level at which these numbers are seeing just feels ghastly. Industrial production for May was -1.1% and Capacity utilization was a mere 68.3%. We saw capacity revised slightly lower for April to 69.0% from 69.1%.
The good news, if you can take any good news from this report, is that the numbers are actually holding up on a year-over-year basis. Production was down more than 13% annually but capacity was up by 0.1%.
The manufacturing was the weak spot where capacity there fell to 65% from 65.6%. You do not even want to see how low the capacity is at manufacturing of autos and parts. If you removed autos, production would have “only” been down by -0.9%.
If the U.S. wants to get its manufacturing game back on, those green manufacturing jobs better start coming to fruition.
Jon C. Ogg
June 16, 2009
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