According to Statistics Canada, following a 3.6 percent increase in June, manufacturing sales fell 1.5 percent in July to $59.6 billion. Sales were down in 12 of 21 industries, led by the wood product (-21.8 percent), aerospace product and parts (-19.0 percent), miscellaneous (-12.1 percent) and petroleum and coal product (-2.3 percent) industries. The declines were partially offset by higher sales in the motor vehicles (+13.5 percent), primary metal (+3.9 percent) and motor vehicle parts (+7.6 percent) industries. On a year-over-year basis, total sales were up 12.2 percent in July.
Total inventories rose 2.6 percent to $93.9 billion in July, the seventh consecutive monthly gain, on higher inventories in the primary metal (+9.4 percent), machinery (+5.4 percent) and fabricated metal product (+3.6 percent) industries. Total inventories declined the most in the chemical product industry (-5.6 percent).
The inventory-to-sales ratio increased from 1.51 in June to 1.58 in July. The 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 increased 0.6 percent to $89.4 billion in July, mostly due to higher unfilled orders of machinery (+5.1 percent) and aerospace (+0.8 percent) products. Year over year, unfilled orders were down 7.4 percent.
The total value of new orders decreased 2.6 percent to $60.1 billion in July, mainly attributable to lower new orders of wood products (-23.5 percent).
The capacity utilization rate (not seasonally adjusted) for the total manufacturing sector decreased from 79.3 percent in June to 76.7 percent in July on lower production.
The capacity utilization rate fell in 14 of 21 industries in July, and the largest declines in production capacity were in the transportation equipment (-7.7 percentage points), wood product (-7.2 percentage points), computer and electronic product (-7.5 percentage points) and plastic and rubber (-6.2 percentage points) industries. The capacity utilization rate in primary metal manufacturing increased 2.5 percentage points.