Industrial Production Declined 0.5% in February

Washington, DC, March 16, 2016—Industrial production decreased 0.5% in February after increasing 0.8% in January, reports the Federal Reserve.

Sizable declines in the indexes for both utilities and mining in February outweighed a gain of 0.2% for manufacturing.

The output of utilities dropped 4.0%, as unseasonably warm weather curbed the demand for heating.

Mining production fell 1.4% and has decreased nearly 1.3% per month, on average, over the past six months.

At 106.3% of its 2012 average, total industrial production in February was 1.0% below its year-earlier level. Capacity utilization for the industrial sector decreased 0.4 percentage point in February to 76.7%, a rate that is 3.3 percentage points below its long-run (1972–2015) average.