Although manufacturing capacity was down overall for Canada, it was a mixed bag for metal working with capacity for fabricated metal products increasing. PHOTO courtesy Sandvik Coromant.
The capacity utilization rate in Canada’s manufacturing sector fell 1.6 percentage points to 76.6% in the third quarter, the first drop since the third quarter of 2021, Statistics Canada reports.
Capacity utilization was down in 14 of the 21 major manufacturing industries, representing approximately 60% of gross domestic product in the manufacturing sector. The manufacturing sector decline coincided with a drop in compensation of employees (-0.4%) in the third quarter of 2022, the first decline since the second quarter of 2020.
For metal working, however, it’s a mixed bag of results. Capacity utilization was down in industries relevant to metal working such as machinery (-1.4%) and furniture (-6.0%) but it was up in transportation equipment (+0.5%) and fabricated metal products (+0.4%)
The industrial capacity utilization rate is the ratio of an industry’s actual output to its estimated potential output.
