Industrial capacity utilization rates, first quarter 2024
Released: 2024-06-07
78.5%
First quarter 2024
-0.1 pts 
(quarterly change)
Canadian industries operated at 78.5% of their production capacity in the first quarter, which was little changed from the rate in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Capacity utilization in manufacturing edges down
The capacity utilization rate in the manufacturing sector edged down 0.1 percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2023 to 76.8% in the first quarter of 2024. The decline was driven by a slowdown in wood product manufacturing (-3.0 percentage points) and non-metallic mineral product manufacturing (-4.5 percentage points).
Chart 1
Variation by industry, in percentage points, first quarter of 2024 compared with fourth quarter of 2023
Slowdown in the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction sector
Following two quarterly increases, capacity utilization in mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction fell 0.7 percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2023 to 75.6% in the first quarter of 2024. This decline coincided with a drop in gas extraction.
Conversely, capacity utilization in the construction sector edged up 0.1 percentage points from the previous quarter to 82.7% in the first quarter. Higher activity in engineering more than offset the decrease in residential building construction.
Chart 2
Industrial capacity utilization in non-manufacturing industries
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Note to readers
The industrial capacity utilization rate is the ratio of an industry's actual output to its estimated potential output.
This program covers all manufacturing industries, as well as forestry and logging; mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction; electric power generation, transmission and distribution; and construction.
For non-manufacturing industries, the quarterly pattern is derived from the output-to-capital ratio series, the output being the real gross domestic product at basic prices, seasonally adjusted, by industry.
In this release, the industrial capacity utilization rates from the Monthly Survey of Manufacturing were seasonally adjusted using X-12-ARIMA (auto-regressive integrated moving average) from the first quarter of 2017.
Data have been revised back to the first quarter of 2023 to account for revisions to the source data and new estimates from the statistical model.
Next release
Data on industrial capacity utilization rates for the second quarter of 2024 will be released on September 13, 2024.
Products
The data visualization product "Overview of the industrial capacity utilization rate: Interactive tool," which is part of the Statistics Canada — Data Visualization Products series (71-607-X), is now available.
The Economic accounts statistics portal, accessible from the Subjects module of the Statistics Canada website, features an up-to-date portrait of national and provincial economies and their structure.
The Latest Developments in the Canadian Economic Accounts (13-605-X) is available.
The User Guide: Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (13-606-G) is available.
The Methodological Guide: Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (13-607-X) is available.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
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