(Corrects throughout to show index still negative but less so than in November)
NEW YORK, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Factory activity in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region contracted in December but at a less severe rate than in the previous month, a survey showed on Thursday.
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank reported its business activity index at minus 32.9 after a reading of minus 39.3 in November.
Any reading below zero indicates contraction in the region's manufacturing sector. Economists had expected a drop to minus 40.0, according to the median of 62 forecasts in a Reuters poll which ranged from minus 47.9 to negative 34.5.
The survey of factories in eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware is seen as one of the first monthly indicators of the health of the U.S. manufacturing sector.
It follows a gauge of manufacturing in New York State released on Monday, which hit a record low this month.
Last month, U.S. factory activity fell to its weakest since the deep recession of 1981-1982, according to the Institute for Supply Management.
The ISM's inflation gauge within that report fell to its lowest in nearly six decades as tumbling prices for commodities and an ebbing economy quashed inflationary pressures. (Reporting by Burton Frierson; Editing by James Dalgleish)