As a coronavirus pandemic, US industrial production dropped 5.4 percent in March. It was the biggest fall since 1946, reflecting the economic damage caused by the epidemic, which since mid-March has forced companies to shed some 17 million jobs as the pandemic has slashed consumer spending and crippled the biggest economy in the world.
Manufacturing production plummeted by 6.3 percent, also the largest decline in more than seven decades, which was felt in most industries but was especially pronounced in motor vehicles and parts which, according to the survey, plunged 28 percent.
The pandemic is another blow to the American industry that was in decline for much of last year, devastated by President Donald Trump’s multi-front war on trade.
Total industrial production is 5.5 percent lower than March 2019 while the manufacturing output is 7.6 percent lower than a year earlier, but analysts expect more bad news to come. “The outlook for the industrial sectors is grim,” Oxford Economics’ Gregory Daco said in an analysis which predicted further declines in April’s results.
“Major disruptions to the supply chain will continue to bring major headwinds in the coming months, declining energy output and tighter financial conditions.”
Smaller declines in nondurable products were recorded, which fell by just 3.2 percent with declines of two percent or less in food and beverage, paper and chemicals — all of which were desired as customers preferred to remain indoors.
Production of utilities dropped 3.9 percent and mining production dropped 2.0 percent, including a significant decrease in oil drilling, while capacity utilization fell from 77 percent in February to 72.7 percent.
And due to this pandemic economic impact, even a number of countries are seeing the economy down. And even some of the countries are so badly affected that with the time, this failure has taken them 20 years back and some countries are on the border to get affected in this way. And the US has become an example for many of those countries at the moment.
