Industrial capacity utilization rates, fourth quarter 2024
Released: 2025-03-07
79.8%
Fourth quarter 2024
0.4 pts 
(quarterly change)
Canadian industries operated at 79.8% of their production capacity in the fourth quarter, up from a rate of 79.4% in the third quarter, which was revised slightly higher.
Growth in the construction sector
Capacity utilization in the construction sector rose 1.0 percentage point to 84.0% in the fourth quarter. This is the second straight quarterly increase after a series of nine consecutive declines. It coincided with increased activity in residential and non-residential building construction.
By contrast, capacity utilization in the electric power generation, transmission and distribution industry fell 0.3 percentage points to 83.1% in the fourth quarter. This downturn coincided with lower demand for electricity for heating purposes because of higher-than-normal temperatures in some parts of the country during the quarter.
Chart 1
Industrial capacity utilization in non-manufacturing industries
Capacity utilization in manufacturing edges up
The capacity utilization rate in the manufacturing sector edged up 0.1 percentage points to 78.2% in the fourth quarter. This increase was driven by petroleum and coal product manufacturing (+4.4 percentage points) and chemical manufacturing (+2.0 percentage points).
Chart 2
Variation by industry, in percentage points, fourth quarter of 2024 compared with third quarter of 2024
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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 2024 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 first quarter of 2025 will be released on June 13.
Products
The data visualization product titled, "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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