Industrial production jumps 0.9% in January

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Industrial production continued several months of gains by rising 0.9% in January, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday.

After jumping 0.7% in December, production levels jumped in all three of the major manufacturing, mining and energy utilities categories.

Industries were operating at 72.6% of capacity last month, a 0.7% increase from December though still 8 percentage points lower than the average from 1972 through 2009.

In January, the manufacturing sector increased 1%, and both utilities and mining saw a 0.7% boost. Manufacturing had fallen off 0.1% in December as mining dipped 0.2%, but total production was buoyed by the 6.3% boom in utilities after an unusually frigid winter.

Production of consumer goods was up 1.1% last month. The index for durables clocked a 2.7% swell, including a 5.1% expansion in automotive products. The index for nondurables moved up 0.7%.

Output of business equipment, including industrial, transit and information processing equipment, improved 0.9% in January but remained 3.8% below the level it was at a year earlier.

After three months of drops, defense and space equipment jumped 1.5% last month. Construction supplies, within the nonindustrial supplies category, rose 1% but stayed 5.3% below the year-earlier level.

-- Tiffany Hsu