Canadian industry continued to reduce its production in 2009's first quarter, according to Statistics Canada.
Industrial capacity use rates fell 5.6% compared with rates in 2008's fourth quarter.
Canadian industries were operating at an average 69.3% of production capacity, the first time that capacity has fallen below 70% since StatsCan started collecting information in 1987.
Transportation equipment, construction and mining industries were the main contributors to the overall drop. The transportation equipment sector led the first-quarter decline from 58.3% in the fourth quarter to 42.5% in 2009's first quarter.
The mining sector's rates fell 14.8% to 55.3%, the lowest ever posted by the sector.
Manufacturers suffered their largest first-quarter production capacity decline: 7.8% to 65.9%. Durable goods, transportation equipment, primary metals, fabricated metals, machinery and wood product manufacturing led the decline.
Year over year, total industrial use fell 10.5%. It was led by declines in:
transportation equipment manufacturing (35%);
mining (18%);
plastic production (15.7%); and
manufacturing (14.2%).
However, not all sectors declined. Beverage producers increased their production use rates by 9.8% year over year. Leather production rose 6.2%, while tobacco production use rate rose 4.5%.