US industrial production rose 0.9% in Oct, vs 0.5% increase expected

• U.S. industrial production showed large gains in October, the second straight month of gains for the measure.
• The metric fell significantly in August after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma battered the Gulf Coast and Florida.

A worker uses a heat gun to smooth out the wrinkles on a car seat during production at the Lear Corp. manufacturing facility in Hammond, Indiana.

Jim Young | Bloomberg | Getty Images

U.S. industrial production jumped a solid 0.9 percent in October as factory activity recovered from the impact of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

The Federal Reserve says that manufacturing activity surged 1.3 percent last month. Many of the gains came from a sharp increase in the production of chemical and petroleum and coal products. Motor vehicles and metals also posted decent gains.

Mining activity slipped 1.3 percent in October as Hurricane Nate caused a brief decline in oil and gas drilling. Production at utilities rose 2 percent.

Over the past year, industrial production has increased 2.9 percent.

Furthermore, the damage from the deadly hurricanes in the Gulf Coast and Florida was revised downward in the latest report. The August reading, the month most affected by hurricane damage, was revised up 0.2 percentage points to a loss of 0.5 percent.

Factories are hiring as demand has improved.

Over the past 12 months, manufacturers have added 156,000 jobs. That's the strongest annual growth since the middle of 2015.

—CNBC's Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report.