The results presented in this release reflect contract manufacturing activity and outsourcing in the Irish industrial economy. The treatment of these concepts follows the definitions set out in the UN 2010 International Recommendations for the Index of Industrial Production, which set out that outsourced production is included as part of an enterprise’s Irish production.
The scale of contract manufacturing and outsourcing in the Irish industrial economy has increased since 2015, meaning that very high levels of short-term, i.e. monthly, volatilily may be present in the indices presented in this release.
With this in mind, the CSO recommends that analysts take a longer-term view of the indices. Accordingly, much of the commentary presented by the CSO in the release will refer to rolling quarterly time periods.
From February 2023 to April 2023, industrial production in manufacturing industries decreased by 17.6% compared with the previous three-month period.
Following on from a 44.7% decrease in March 2023, production in manufacturing industries increased by 70.7% in April 2023.
The exceptionally volatile results seen in manufacturing industries are not common to all sectors in the industrial economy. The 'Modern' sector, which includes the Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Computer & Electronic sectors, recorded an 81.3% increase in industrial production in April 2023, compared to March 2023. By contrast, the 'Traditional' sector, which is made up of all remaining enterprises, recorded a moderate increase of 1.2% over the same period.
In the three months to April 2023, production in the 'Modern' sector fell by 13.3% compared with the previous three-month period, whereas in the 'Traditional' sector production rose by 0.5% over the same period.
From February 2023 to April 2023, turnover in manufacturing industries declined by 1.8% compared with the previous three-month period.
The CSO had previously committed to review its approach to the seasonal adjustment methodology used in this monthly Industrial Production and Turnover series. This review is still ongoing, and, in the meantime, the CSO will continue to implement the direct method of seasonal adjustment.
| Manufacturing Industries - Seasonally Adjusted and Unadjusted1 | ||||
| (Base Year 2015 = 100) | ||||
| Seasonally Adjusted | Seasonally Unadjusted | |||
| Production Index | Turnover Index | Production Index | Turnover Index | |
| April 2022 | 149.5 | 136.7 | 148.2 | 137.3 |
| March 2023 | 110.1 | 152.6 | 100.8 | 124.3 |
| April 2023 | 187.9 | 152.4 | 182.1 | 150.1 |
| Monthly % change | 70.7 | -0.2 | 80.7 | 20.8 |
| Annual % change | 25.7 | 11.4 | 22.9 | 9.3 |
| Nov 2022 - Jan 2023 | 201.2 | 160.0 | 214.4 | 163.3 |
| Feb 2023 - Apr 2023 | 165.7 | 157.1 | 152.7 | 143.7 |
| % change | -17.6 | -1.8 | -28.8 | -12.0 |
| 1Figures may differ due to rounding. | ||||
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (07 June 2023) published the Industrial Production and Turnover release for April 2023.
Commenting on the release, Eamonn Cleary, Statistician in the Business Statistics Division, said: "Industrial production in manufacturing industries decreased by 17.6% from February 2023 to April 2023, compared with the previous three-month period (See Headline Table, Table 1 and Table 3b).
Following on from a 44.7% decrease in March 2023, production in manufacturing industries had a monthly increase of 70.7% in April 2023 (See Headline Table, Table 1 and Table 3a).
It should be noted that these exceptionally volatile results are not common to all sectors in the industrial economy. For instance, the 'Modern' sector, which includes the Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Computer & Electronic sectors, recorded an 81.3% increase in industrial production in April 2023, compared to March 2023. By contrast, the 'Traditional' sector, which is made up of all remaining enterprises, recorded a moderate increase of 1.2% over the same period (See Table 2 and Table 3a).
From February 2023 to April 2023, production in the 'Modern' sector fell by 13.3% compared with the previous three-month period, whereas in the 'Traditional' sector production rose by 0.5% over the same period (See Table 2 and Table 3b).
From February 2023 to April 2023, turnover in manufacturing industries dropped by 1.8% compared with the previous three-month period (See Headline Table, Table 4 and Table 5b).
In general, it should be noted that the results presented in this release reflect contract manufacturing activity in the multinational sectors."