The capacity utilization rate (not seasonally adjusted) for the total manufacturing sector shrunk by 3.2% from 80.8% in June to 77.6% in July, on lower production, according to Statistics Canada.
The capacity utilization rate for fabricated metal product manufacturing took a harder hit than the national average, shrinking by 5.9%. As significant as that shrinkage was it wasn’t as bad as that shown in other subsectors. The decline in capacity utilization rates was most noticeable in the wood product (-9.8 percentage points), transportation equipment (-7.5 percentage points) and machinery (-7.2 percentage points) subsectors.
The capacity utilization drop off was also not as severe when looked at on a year-over-year basis. It shrank by only 0.7% compared to July of 2022.
Primary metal manufacturing capacity utilization also took a bit of hit, falling off by 0.4 for July compared to the previous month. However, that was still 2.4% ahead of last year’s rate.
