Midwest Manufacturing Indica Up Last Month

By Kevin Robinson in News on Dec 29, 2009 4:20PM

The Chicago Federal Reserve reported Monday that its Midwest manufacturing index rose slightly in November, the highest it's been in almost a year. The index measures monthly by major industry the manufacturing output in the Seventh Federal Reserve District states of lllinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin. It is a composite of 15 manufacturing industries that uses hours worked to measure monthly changes in regional activity. According to Crain's the index climbed 1.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted 84.2, the highest it's been since December of last year. Unfortunately, while those numbers may be indicative of an economic recovery on the horizon, they're still down 10 percent from a year ago, putting Midwestern manufacturing output significantly lower than in other parts of the nation by over five percent.

And while manufacturing rose generally in the Midwest last month, key sectors of auto and steel production showed the most increase, with auto production rising just over one percent and steel production rising 2.5 percent.