Canadian wood product sector saw decline in January 2024, with a 3.3% decrease in sales, reaching C$3.029 billion, according to the monthly manufacturing report released by Statistics Canada.
In comparison to the same month last year, there was a decrease of 0.5% in total sales for the wood product sector.
In terms of capacity utilization, the wood product manufacturing sector experienced a decrease from 76.2% in January 2023 to 70.0% in January 2024.
Canadian manufacturing sales rose 0.2% to $71.1 billion in January, on higher sales in 11 of the 21 subsectors, led by the transportation equipment (+4.3%) and chemical (+3.5%) subsectors. The aerospace product and parts industry group (-16.7%) posted the largest decline, according to Statistics Canada.
Sales in constant dollars rose 1.1% in January, while the Industrial Product Price Index edged down 0.1%.
Manufacturing sales increased in seven provinces in January, led by Ontario and New Brunswick. Sales in Ontario rose 3.8% to $32.2 billion in January, in New Brunswick, sales increased 4.2% to $2.1 billion. Sales in Quebec posted the largest decline. In Quebec, sales fell 4.2% from December to $17.3 billion in January, following two consecutive monthly increases.
Total inventories decreased 0.2% to $122.1 billion in January, following a 1.4% decline in December, due to lower raw material inventories (-1.2%). Lower inventories of primary metals (-4.2%) and petroleum and coal (-4.5%) were mainly responsible for the decline.
The inventory-to-sales ratio was unchanged, at 1.72 in January. This ratio measures the time, in months, that would be required to exhaust inventories if sales were to remain at their current level.
The total value of unfilled orders declined 1.3% to $104.2 billion in January, largely on a 2.2% decrease in unfilled orders of transportation equipment.
The capacity utilization rate (not seasonally adjusted) for the total manufacturing sector increased from 75.1% in December to 77.1% in January, mainly on higher production.
