In the fourth quarter of 2012, the Canadian manufacturing sector operated at 80.2 percent of its capacity, 2.1 percentage points lower than in the previous quarter and down 1.1 percentage points compared to the same period of the previous year, according to the data released by Statistics Canada. The quarter-on-quarter decline in Canada's manufacturing capacity utilization was largely attributable to transportation equipment manufacturing in which capacity utilization fell 3.5 percentage points to 88.9 percent in the fourth quarter.
In addition, in the Canadian fabricated metal products industry, capacity use was up 0.5 percentage points year on year while it fell from 83.5 percent in the third quarter to 80 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, as a result of weaker demand for metal work. The country's basic metal sector capacity utilization was 81.1 percent in the fourth quarter, down 0.5 percentage points compared to the previous quarter and down 6.3 percentage points year on year.
On the other hand, the capacity utilization rate in Canada's construction sector was 79.7 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, up 0.8 percentage points over the previous quarter and up 2.9 percent year on year.