Total unfilled orders for the aerospace product and parts industry, a key customer for metalworking job shops, declined 1.6% in May. PHOTO courtesy Airbus.
Total inventory levels for Canadian manufacturers declined 0.6% to $122.8 billion in May on lower inventories in 11 of 21 manufacturing industries, the latest data collected by Statistics Canada indicates.
On a year-over-year basis, however, total inventories were still up 7.0% in May.
The inventory-to-sales ratio decreased from 1.72 in April to 1.69 in May. This ratio measures the time, in months, that would be required to exhaust inventories if sales were to remain at their current level.
Total unfilled orders decreased 1.5% to $105.0 billion in May, the lowest level since May 2022. The aerospace product and parts industry, a key customer for metalworking job shops, contributed the most to the decline (-1.6%).
