Wood product sales rise while furniture manufacturing declines in August amid Canada"s manufacturing downturn

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Canada's total manufacturing sales fell 1.3% to $69.4 billion in August, marking the lowest point since January 2022. This decline, following a 1.1% increase in July, was driven primarily by drops in the primary metal (-6.4%) and petroleum and coal product (-3.7%) subsectors. However, some sectors showed resilience, particularly wood products, which increased by 3.8%, reaching $3.1 billion in sales, according to the new data from Statistics Canada​.

In contrast, furniture and related product sales dropped by 4.2% to $1.2 billion, continuing a broader downward trend with a 6.2% decrease compared to August 2023. Paper manufacturing also experienced a slight dip of 1.7% in monthly sales, though it remained relatively stable year-over-year with a modest 0.3% increase.

The overall manufacturing sector's capacity utilization rose by 1.0 percentage points to 79.6% in August, while wood product manufacturing saw a slight decrease of 1.0 percentage point to 70.2%, reflecting a 5.8 percentage point drop compared to August 2023. Conversely, paper manufacturing's capacity utilization climbed 1.4 percentage points to 85.1%, marking an 8.6 percentage point increase year-over-year. Furniture manufacturing, meanwhile, saw its capacity utilization decline by 1.0 percentage point from July to 76.9%, continuing a 2.2 percentage point drop over the past year.