Labor and Employment

Industrial production and retail sales both rose in September and exceeded growth expectations, according to MarketWatch and CNBC.

What’s going on: Industrial production increased 0.3% for the month, above the 0.1% gain expected, MarketWatch reports.

• Meanwhile, retail sales rose 0.7% for the month, more than twice the 0.3% rise estimated by Dow Jones, according to CNBC.

The details: In industrial production, “[m]anufacturing rose 0.4% and motor vehicle production rose 0.3%, held down by the ongoing strike against three automakers,” MarketWatch reports.

• For retail, “the biggest increase [was] at miscellaneous store retailers, which saw an increase of 3%. Online sales rose 1.1% while motor vehicle parts and dealers saw a 1% increase and food services and drinking places grew by 0.9%, good for a yearly increase of 9.2%, which led all categories,” according to CNBC.

What it means: The retail numbers “indicate that consumers more than kept up with price increases,” CNBC said, though that could change as employment growth is expected to slow.