EmailIndustrial production increased 0.1% in May, after being flat in April. The Briefing.com consensus expected industrial production to increase 0.2%.
Manufacturing production increased 0.4% in May after declining 0.5% in April. These are healthy numbers, especially considering most of the national and regional manufacturing survey data over the last two months have been notably soft. Excluding motor vehicles production - which was stunted by supply shortages following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami - manufacturing production increased 0.6%.
The lack of growth in industrial production can be blamed on a 2.8% decline in utilities production. Utilities have contracted in four out of the last five months. Mining production increased 0.5%.
As previously mentioned, the aftereffects of the Japanese natural disasters are still having adverse effects on the motor vehicle manufacturing sector. For the second consecutive month, motor vehicle assemblies remained below 8.00 million SAAR.
Auto assemblies improved, increasing from 2.66 million SAAR in April to 2.83 million SAAR in May. This is just below the pre-earthquake level of 2.90 million SAAR in March. Light truck assemblies fell from 4.99 million SAAR to 4.83 million SAAR. This is its lowest production level since June 2010.
Capacity utilization rates remained at 76.7% in May after April levels were revised down from 76.9%. The consensus expected capacity utilization rates to increase to 77.0%.
Manufacturing capacity utilization edged up to 74.5% in May from 74.2% in April.
