AI Analysis: Manufacturing capacity utilization rates, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)

Executive Summary

Canadian manufacturing capacity utilization averaged 76.6% across 28 NAICS industries from January 2017 to January 2026, with most sectors operating within a narrow band of 73.6%–80.4% of capacity. The most significant disruption occurred in April 2020, when overall utilization plunged to 54.6% due to COVID-19, before recovering strongly, though by January 2026 the rate had settled at 75.3% — 4.3 percentage points below the pre-pandemic peak of 83.7% recorded in March 2018. Non-durable goods industries consistently outperformed durable goods, averaging 79.5% versus 77.2% utilization across the full period.

Key Findings

• Overall manufacturing capacity utilization averaged 76.6% (median 77.3%) across 3,052 records spanning 28 NAICS industries and 109 monthly periods from January 2017 to January 2026.
• The sharpest disruption in the dataset was the COVID-19 pandemic drop to 54.6% in April 2020, representing the single largest deviation from the norm and a clearly flagged outlier in the time series analysis.
• The peak utilization rate of 83.7% was recorded in March 2018, and as of January 2026 the rate stands at 75.3%, reflecting a net decline of 4.3 percentage points since the series began.
• Non-durable goods industries averaged higher utilization (79.5%) than durable goods industries (77.2%) across the full nine-year period, suggesting more consistent demand in non-durable manufacturing sectors.
• The interquartile range of just 6.83% (Q1: 73.6%, Q3: 80.4%) and a standard deviation of 6.6% confirm that the majority of industries cluster tightly around the mid-70s to low-80s utilization range.
• Extreme values at both ends of the spectrum — a low of 17.7% and a high of 97.8% — indicate that select industries occasionally face near-idle conditions or near-full-capacity pressure, well outside the typical operating range.
• The dataset is exceptionally complete, with only 4 missing values out of 3,052 records, making the findings highly reliable for trend analysis and cross-industry comparisons.