Industrial capacity utilization rates, third quarter 2022
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Released: 2022-12-09
82.6%
Third quarter 2022
-0.2 pts 
(quarterly change)
Canadian industries operated at 82.6% of their production capacity in the third quarter, down 0.2 percentage points from the previous quarter. This is the first decline in the capacity utilization rate since the third quarter of 2021.
A decline in the manufacturing sector more than offset the gains posted in the other sectors.
Capacity utilization rate in manufacturing falls
The capacity utilization rate in the manufacturing sector fell 1.6 percentage points to 76.6% in the third quarter, the first drop since the third quarter of 2021. 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.
Chart 1
Quarterly change by industry, third quarter 2022 compared with second quarter 2022
Primary metal manufacturing declined 3.7 percentage points to 72.2% in the third quarter.This decline was partly due to unexpected interruptions at some major primary metal manufacturers.
The capacity utilization rate of wood product manufacturers fell to 79.4% in the third quarter, down 3.9 percentage points. The downturn in residential construction contributed to pulling the demand for Canadian wood products downward. This decrease coincided with a drop in exports of building and packaging materials (-11.9%).
Mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction rises
Chart 2
Industrial capacity utilization in non-manufacturing industries
In the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction sector, capacity utilization rose 0.9 percentage points to 82.3% in the third quarter, the highest rate since the second quarter of 2019. This increase was driven by higher activities in the support activities for mining and in mining and quarrying subsector.
After falling in the previous quarter, capacity utilization in the construction sector edged up 0.1 percentage points to 91.7% in the third quarter. Higher activities in engineering and other construction work were moderated by a decline in residential construction, which was affected by gradually rising interest rates.
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, including data revised from the first quarter of 2018, were seasonally adjusted using X-12 ARIMA from the first quarter of 2017.
Data for non-manufacturing industries have been revised back to the first quarter of 2017 to account for revisions to the source data and new estimates from the statistical model. Gross domestic product was revised from the first quarter of 2018, and capital stock from the first quarter of 2019.
Next release
Data on industrial capacity utilization rates for the fourth quarter of 2022 will be released on March 10, 2023.
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
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