According to Statistics Canada, Canadian manufacturing sales decreased 2.8 percent to $69.6 billion in April, the largest month-over-month decrease since October 2023 and the lowest level since January 2022. Lower sales of petroleum and coal products (-10.9 percent), motor vehicles (-8.3 percent), and primary metals (-4.4 percent) contributed the most to the decline in April 2025. Excluding the petroleum and coal product subsector, total manufacturing sales were down 1.8 percent.
Total inventories fell 1.0 percent to $119.0 billion in April, reaching the lowest level since July 2022. All inventory components decreased in April 2025, with finished product inventories posting the largest decline (-1.3 percent), followed by inventories of raw materials (-0.9 percent) and goods-in-process (-0.6 percent). Inventories fell in 9 of the 21 subsectors, led by the primary metal (-3.9 percent), petroleum and coal (-5.9 percent), and transportation equipment (-2.1 percent) subsectors. In contrast, total inventories of wood products (+3.0 percent) increased the most during April.
The inventory-to-sales ratio increased from 1.68 in March to 1.71 in April. 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 decreased 1.1 percent to $108.9 billion in April, largely on lower unfilled orders of aerospace products and parts (-1.6 percent).
The capacity utilization rate (not seasonally adjusted) for the total manufacturing sector decreased from 80.1 percent in March to 77.7 percent in April.
Capacity utilization rates decreased in petroleum and coal (-18.7 percentage points), transportation equipment (-2.6 percentage points), and wood product (-3.1 percentage points) subsectors. Meanwhile, the capacity utilization rate in the non-metallic mineral subsector rose 6.3 percentage points.