May 2012 Industrial Production, Capacity Utilization and Capacity

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Industrial production edged down 0.1 percent in May after having gained 1.0 percent in April. A decrease of 0.4 percent for manufacturing production in May partially reversed a large increase in April. Outside of manufacturing, the output of mines advanced 0.9 percent in May, while the output of utilities rose 0.8 percent. At 97.3 percent of its 2007 average, total industrial production in May was 4.7 percent above its year-earlier level. Wood Products output rose by 1.0 percent, while Paper retreated by 0.4 percent.
 

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Capacity utilization for total industry declined 0.2 percentage point to 79.0 percent, a rate 1.3 percentage points below its long-run (1972--2011) average. As with industrial production, capacity utilization was split: +1.1 percent for Wood Products, and -0.4 percent for Paper.
 

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Capacity at the all-industries and manufacturing levels crept higher (0.1 percent). By contrast, Wood Products and Paper both dropped: respectively, by 0.2 and 0.1 percent.