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Manufacturing sales declined 2.1% to $40.9 billion in August following a 5.2% gain in July. The aerospace product and parts and motor vehicle industries were the major contributors to the decline in sales. Sales have been relatively level since February, after declining 20.4% between October 2008 and January 2009.
Constant dollar manufacturing sales fell 2.3% in August.
Sales in 13 of 21 manufacturing industries decreased in August.
Production in the aerospace product and parts industry fell 35.6% to $1.2 billion. Production in the industry has been volatile over the past several months. Excluding the decline in aerospace, manufacturing sales decreased by 0.6%.
Manufacturing sales in the motor vehicle industry fell 6.3% to $3.1 billion. The decline in August follows a 48.8% gain by the industry in July.
All data in this release are seasonally adjusted and are expressed in current dollars unless otherwise specified.
Preliminary data are provided for the current reference month. Revised data, based on late responses, are updated for the three previous months.
Non-durable goods industries include food, beverage and tobacco products, textile mills, textile product mills, clothing, leather and allied products, paper, printing and related support activities, petroleum and coal products, chemicals, and plastics and rubber products.
Durable goods industries include wood products, non-metallic mineral products, primary metals, fabricated metal products, machinery, computer and electronic products, electrical equipment, appliances and components, transportation equipment, furniture and related products and miscellaneous manufacturing.
Production-based industries
For the aerospace industry and shipbuilding industries, the value of production is used instead of sales of goods manufactured. This value is calculated by adjusting monthly sales of goods manufactured by the monthly change in inventories of goods in process and finished products manufactured.
Unfilled orders are a stock of orders that will contribute to future sales assuming that the orders are not cancelled.
New orders are those received whether sold in the current month or not. New orders are measured as the sum of sales for the current month plus the change in unfilled orders from the previous month to the current month.
Miscellaneous manufacturing (-10.5%) and chemical manufacturing (-2.5%) also reported decreases.
Sales in the petroleum and coal products industry rose 7.2%. The increase in sales was mostly driven by higher prices, as the Industrial Product Price Index for the industry was up 5.8%.
In Quebec, sales decreased 4.0% in August. A 29.0% drop in production in the aerospace product and parts industry largely contributed to the provincial decline. Other durable goods industries also reported declines, including computer and electronic products (-14.1%), miscellaneous manufacturing (-11.1%) and machinery manufacturing (-8.4%). Petroleum and coal products (+5.0%) and food manufacturing (+2.7%) partially offset the declines reported by durable goods industries.
Sales in Ontario declined 3.2% in August following an 11.6% gain in July. The decline in August mostly reflected a 7.4% decrease in sales in the motor vehicle industry and a 58.5% drop in aerospace products and parts manufacturing. A 14.3% drop in miscellaneous manufacturing also contributed to the provincial decline.
In Alberta, a 4.9% gain in sales largely reflected an increase in the petroleum and coal products industry. Machinery manufacturing (+11.6%) also contributed to the province's strength in August.
Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick were other provinces with sales increases. Sales declined in Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Manitoba. Sales in British Columbia remained unchanged from July.
July 2009r | August 2009p | July to August 2009 | |
---|---|---|---|
Seasonally adjusted | |||
$ millions | % change1 | ||
Canada | 41,724 | 40,858 | -2.1 |
Newfoundland and Labrador | 416 | 458 | 10.2 |
Prince Edward Island | 110 | 106 | -3.7 |
Nova Scotia | 758 | 731 | -3.5 |
New Brunswick | 1,268 | 1,291 | 1.8 |
Quebec | 10,912 | 10,473 | -4.0 |
Ontario | 19,214 | 18,603 | -3.2 |
Manitoba | 1,188 | 1,171 | -1.4 |
Saskatchewan | 888 | 840 | -5.4 |
Alberta | 4,309 | 4,521 | 4.9 |
British Columbia | 2,659 | 2,660 | 0.0 |
Yukon | 2 | 2 | -8.7 |
Northwest Territories and Nunavut | 1 | 2 | 57.9 |
Manufacturers reported a 0.7% decline in inventories compared with July, with levels falling to $61.0 billion. Inventories have been decreasing since January 2009.
Inventories of aerospace products and parts (-6.5%), fabricated metal products (-2.3%), machinery (-2.0%) and food (-1.9%) were responsible for most of the drop in manufacturing inventories.
Petroleum and coal products and primary metals were the main offsetting industries in August. Petroleum inventories rose 9.7%, reflecting both price and volume increases. Price increases led to the 2.7% rise in primary metals inventories.
The larger percentage decrease in sales relative to the decline in inventories explains the slight rise in the inventory-to-sales ratio from 1.47 to 1.49.
The backlog of unfilled orders fell 4.2% to $54.3 billion in August. Unfilled orders were 23.7% lower than the record level of $71.2 billion posted in November 2008.
The decrease in August was driven by an 8.3% decline in the aerospace industry. Excluding aerospace products and parts, unfilled orders rose 0.3%.
New orders increased 0.2% to $38.5 billion in August.
Available on CANSIM: tables 304-0014, 304-0015 and 377-0008.
Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 2101.
Data from the September Monthly Survey of Manufacturing will be released on November 16.
For more information, or to order data, contact the dissemination officer (toll-free 1-866-873-8789; 613-951-9497; fax: 613-951-3877; manufact@statcan.gc.ca). To enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Michael Schimpf (613-951-9832; michael.schimpf@statcan.gc.ca), Manufacturing and Energy Division.
Sales | Inventories | Unfilled orders | New orders | Inventory-to-sales ratio | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Seasonally adjusted | |||||||||
$ millions | % change | $ millions | % change | $ millions | % change | $ millions | % change | ||
August 2008 | 51,326 | -3.7 | 67,848 | 0.8 | 66,732 | 3.4 | 53,498 | -1.1 | 1.32 |
September 2008 | 51,145 | -0.4 | 67,470 | -0.6 | 66,252 | -0.7 | 50,665 | -5.3 | 1.32 |
October 2008 | 50,925 | -0.4 | 68,430 | 1.4 | 70,558 | 6.5 | 55,232 | 9.0 | 1.34 |
November 2008 | 47,331 | -7.1 | 67,946 | -0.7 | 71,238 | 1.0 | 48,011 | -13.1 | 1.44 |
December 2008 | 43,077 | -9.0 | 66,474 | -2.2 | 69,665 | -2.2 | 41,503 | -13.6 | 1.54 |
January 2009 | 40,557 | -5.8 | 66,529 | 0.1 | 66,659 | -4.3 | 37,551 | -9.5 | 1.64 |
February 2009 | 41,426 | 2.1 | 65,965 | -0.8 | 66,556 | -0.2 | 41,324 | 10.0 | 1.59 |
March 2009 | 40,422 | -2.4 | 64,629 | -2.0 | 67,032 | 0.7 | 40,898 | -1.0 | 1.60 |
April 2009 | 40,275 | -0.4 | 63,909 | -1.1 | 63,089 | -5.9 | 36,332 | -11.2 | 1.59 |
May 2009 | 38,488 | -4.4 | 62,792 | -1.7 | 58,648 | -7.0 | 34,047 | -6.3 | 1.63 |
June 2009 | 39,650 | 3.0 | 62,758 | -0.1 | 60,041 | 2.4 | 41,043 | 20.5 | 1.58 |
July 2009 | 41,724 | 5.2 | 61,448 | -2.1 | 56,722 | -5.5 | 38,406 | -6.4 | 1.47 |
August 2009 | 40,858 | -2.1 | 60,998 | -0.7 | 54,345 | -4.2 | 38,480 | 0.2 | 1.49 |
Sales | Inventories | Unfilled orders | New orders | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Seasonally adjusted | ||||||||
$ millions | % change | $ millions | % change | $ millions | % change | $ millions | % change | |
August 2008 | 45,502 | -3.4 | 65,178 | 1.1 | 65,217 | 3.5 | 47,703 | -0.5 |
September 2008 | 45,402 | -0.2 | 64,920 | -0.4 | 64,840 | -0.6 | 45,024 | -5.6 |
October 2008 | 45,419 | 0.0 | 65,746 | 1.3 | 69,363 | 7.0 | 49,942 | 10.9 |
November 2008 | 41,697 | -8.2 | 65,276 | -0.7 | 70,042 | 1.0 | 42,375 | -15.2 |
December 2008 | 38,772 | -7.0 | 64,159 | -1.7 | 68,551 | -2.1 | 37,281 | -12.0 |
January 2009 | 37,807 | -2.5 | 63,806 | -0.5 | 65,612 | -4.3 | 34,868 | -6.5 |
February 2009 | 37,920 | 0.3 | 63,483 | -0.5 | 65,472 | -0.2 | 37,780 | 8.4 |
March 2009 | 36,509 | -3.7 | 62,121 | -2.1 | 66,101 | 1.0 | 37,138 | -1.7 |
April 2009 | 35,997 | -1.4 | 61,525 | -1.0 | 62,212 | -5.9 | 32,108 | -13.5 |
May 2009 | 34,988 | -2.8 | 60,375 | -1.9 | 57,850 | -7.0 | 30,626 | -4.6 |
June 2009 | 36,248 | 3.6 | 60,474 | 0.2 | 59,336 | 2.6 | 37,734 | 23.2 |
July 2009 | 36,890 | 1.8 | 59,113 | -2.2 | 56,050 | -5.5 | 33,604 | -10.9 |
August 2009 | 36,291 | -1.6 | 58,681 | -0.7 | 53,662 | -4.3 | 33,903 | 0.9 |