U.S. Industrial Production Climbs More Than Expected In January

Industrial production in the U.S. saw another notable increase in the month of January, according to a report released by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday.

The Fed said industrial production climbed by 0.9 percent in January after jumping by a downwardly revised 1.3 percent in December.

Economists had expected industrial production to rise by 0.5 percent compared to the 1.6 percent spike originally reported for the previous month.

The bigger than expected increase in industrial production came as manufacturing output surged up by 1.0 percent in January after climbing by 0.9 percent in December.

Mining output also spiked by 2.3 percent in January after rising by 0.7 percent in December, while utilities output slumped by 1.2 percent after soaring by 4.9 percent in the previous month.

“Industrial production is relatively protected from COVID-related risks and will stay in expansion mode this year,” said Oren Klachkin, Lead U.S. Economist at Oxford Economics.

He added, “Solid consumer goods demand, inventory restocking, rebounding business investment, and additional pandemic relief from Congress will keep industrial production from sliding into contraction.”

The report also said capacity utilization for the industrial sector rose to 75.6 percent in January from an upwardly revised 74.9 percent in December.

Economists had expected capacity utilization to inch up to 74.8 percent from the 74.5 percent originally reported for the previous month.

Capacity utilization in the manufacturing and mining sectors increased to 74.6 percent and 82.2 percent, respectively, while capacity utilization in the utilities sector fell to 73.5 percent.

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