(Reuters – David Ljunggren)
In another signal of a patchy economic recovery in Canada, industrial capacity use rose in the second quarter of 2010 – the fourth consecutive increase – but remained well below recent peaks. Statistics Canada said on Tuesday that industries operated at 76.0% of total capacity, up from the revised 74.4% in the first quarter, and slightly higher than the 75.8% expected by market operators.
The economic recession had helped cut capacity utilization to a record low of 68.1% in the second quarter of 2009. That said, the rate is well below its recent high of 83.1% in the first quarter of 2007.
Read more here.Statistics for industrial capacity utilization rates, and a link to the data file, are on the Statistics Canada website here. Labour productivity statistics, and links to the data files can be found here.
