Canadian wood products sector saw production capacity decline in the third quarter. The statistics indicate a capacity utilization rate of 76.0%, down from 76.6% in the previous quarter and 80.6% in Q3 2022. This trend is reflective of the broader challenges facing the manufacturing sector, despite the marginal increase in the overall industrial production capacity to 79.7% in Q3 2023, as reported by Statistics Canada. Notably, the wood product manufacturing industry has been on a downward trajectory over the past few quarters.
Contrary to this, other sectors such as construction have maintained relatively steady capacity utilization rates, with the construction industry reporting 84.1% in the latest quarter.
Overall, Canadian industries exhibited a modest uptick in production capacity during the third quarter, operating at 79.7%, a slight improvement from the second quarter's 79.6%. The manufacturing sector, in particular, saw a 0.3 percentage point increase in capacity utilization, reaching 78.3%. This growth was primarily propelled by the robust performance of primary metal manufacturing, which saw a 2.2 percentage point increase, and metal product manufacturing, which recorded a 1.3 percentage point rise.
