Manufacturing Output Rises; Operating Rate Above Long Run Average

May 16, 2006
U.S. factory output increased seven-tenths of a percentage point in April, the second consecutive monthly increase this year, the Federal Reserve reported on May 16. Its index for manufacturing production now stands at 114.3 (2002=100) and is 5.5% above ...

U.S. factory output increased seven-tenths of a percentage point in April, the second consecutive monthly increase this year, the Federal Reserve reported on May 16. Its index for manufacturing production now stands at 114.3 (2002=100) and is 5.5% above the index figure for April 2005. In contrast, neither utility nor mining output has fared as well year-over-year. Mining output declined three-tenths of a percent between April 2005 and April 2006, while utility output rose 2.5%.

Among makers of durable goods, output gains greater than 1% were posted for nonmetallic mineral products; primary metals; machinery; computer and electronic products; electrical equipment, appliances and components; and aerospace and miscellaneous transportation equipment. Among makers of nondurables, output gains were recorded for paper; plastics and rubber products; and chemicals.

The factory operating rate last month was 80.8%, up from 80.4% in March and a full percentage point above its long-term average, the Fed said. A year ago, U.S. factories were operating at 78.4% of capacity, 2.4 percentage points below April's level.

Overall U.S. industrial production, which in addition to manufacturing includes utilities and mining, increased eight-tenths percent in April, and total industry capacity utilization was 81.9%, up from 81.4% in March.

About the Author

John McClenahen | Former Senior Editor, IndustryWeek

 John S. McClenahen, is an occasional essayist on the Web site of IndustryWeek, the executive management publication from which he retired in 2006. He began his journalism career as a broadcast journalist at Westinghouse Broadcasting’s KYW in Cleveland, Ohio. In May 1967, he joined Penton Media Inc. in Cleveland and in September 1967 was transferred to Washington, DC, the base from which for nearly 40 years he wrote primarily about national and international economics and politics, and corporate social responsibility.
      
      McClenahen, a native of Ohio now residing in Maryland, is an award-winning writer and photographer. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently An Unexpected Poet (2013), and several books of photographs, including Black, White, and Shades of Grey (2014). He also is the author of a children’s book, Henry at His Beach (2014).
      
      His photograph “Provincetown: Fog Rising 2004” was selected for the Smithsonian Institution’s 2011 juried exhibition Artists at Work and displayed in the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from June until October 2011. Five of his photographs are in the collection of St. Lawrence University and displayed on campus in Canton, New York.
      
      John McClenahen’s essay “Incorporating America: Whitman in Context” was designated one of the five best works published in The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies during the twelve-year editorship of R. Barry Leavis of Rollins College. John McClenahen’s several journalism prizes include the coveted Jesse H. Neal Award. He also is the author of the commemorative poem “Upon 50 Years,” celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Wolfson College Cambridge, and appearing in “The Wolfson Review.”
      
      John McClenahen received a B.A. (English with a minor in government) from St. Lawrence University, an M.A., (English) from Western Reserve University, and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University, where he also pursued doctoral studies. At St. Lawrence University, he was elected to academic honor societies in English and government and to Omicron Delta Kappa, the University’s highest undergraduate honor. John McClenahen was a participant in the 32nd Annual Wharton Seminars for Journalists at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. During the Easter Term of the 1986 academic year, John McClenahen was the first American to hold a prestigious Press Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.
      
      John McClenahen has served on the Editorial Board of Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies and was co-founder and first editor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown. He has been a volunteer researcher on the William Steinway Diary Project at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and has been an assistant professorial lecturer at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
      

 

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