2009

Canadian manufacturing sales edged down 0.1% to $41 billion in April, according to the latest report from Statistics Canada. Manufacturing sales leveled off between February and April, after falling by 18.7% between October 2008and January 2009. Sizable gains in the transportation equipment industry were offset by weakness in other industries. Excluding the transportation equipment industry, manufacturing sales decreased by 2.8%.

Constant dollar manufacturing sales gained 0.4% in April. The slight rise in constant dollar sales indicates an increase in the volume of sales between March and April. Although manufacturing sales remaining largely unchanged in April, sales decreased in 16 of 21 manufacturing industries.

By Sector
The weakness in most sectors was offset by a 16.4% gain in …

Canadian industries continued to reduce their rate of capacity utilization in the first quarter of 2009, operating at 69.3% of production capacity, down 5.6 percentage points from the previous quarter. It was the first time that industrial capacity use fell below the 70% level since the start of the data series in 1987.

In the first quarter, durable goods industries, especially the transportation equipment industry, the construction sector, and the mining sector (excluding oil and gas extraction), were the main contributors to the overall decline. Weakened global and domestic demand for manufactured goods continued to drive down capacity utilization rates. Of the 21 major industries in the manufacturing group, 18 registered lower rates.

As it did in the fourth quarter of 2008, the …

April 2009 wholesale revenues were $309.4 billion, down 0.4% from March and 19.5% from April 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
 
April sales of durable goods were down 1.9% from last month and were down 23.4% from a year ago. Sales of motor vehicle and motor vehicle parts and supplies, were down 7.8% from last month and sales of metals and minerals, except petroleum were down 6.5%. Sales of nondurable goods were up 0.8% from last month, but were down 16.1% from last year.
 
Sales of farm product raw materials were up 10.5% from last month and sales of beer, wine, and distilled alcoholic beverages were up 2.6%.
 
Total inventories were $405.4 billion at the end of April, down 1.4% from the revised March level and were down 6.2% from a year ago. …

April U.S. manufacturing technology consumption totaled $97.04 million, according to the Association For Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors’ Association. This total, as reported by companies participating in the USMTC program, was down 41.5% from March and down 77.7% from the total of $435.34 million reported for April 2008. With a year-to-date total of $497.40 million, 2009 is down 70.7% compared with 2008.

These numbers and all data in this report are based on the totals of actual data reported by companies participating in the USMTC program.

Industry executives have speculated whether we have reached the bottom of this current economic downturn, said Douglas K. Woods, AMT president. “The 41% drop in …