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Since 1997, VCR has attempted to use Statistics Canada (Stats Can) data to track Canadian furniture industry shipment and other data, year over year. This comparison of "apples with apples" has been limited by two factors. In 2000, Stats Can switched from the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), a consequence of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The main NAICS code for the "Household and Institutional Furniture and Kitchen Cabinet Industry" is NAICS 337, which is comparable to the now-defunct SIC 26 code but with enough exceptions to make consistent tracking impossible. For example, unlike the NAICS, the SIC did not include the kitchen cabinet industry as "furniture."
Another methodological change made by Stats Can for its 2000 Annual Survey of Manufacturers (ASM) reference year involved the inclusion of an additional 1,600 smaller manuafacturers in NAICS 337. (Stats Can also stopped including shipments attributed to "head offices," but this will have little impact on our industry data.) Stats Can determined that these additional manufacturers would have minimal impact and continued using the same table numbers to track furniture industry data. However, as Stats Can states, "The impact of incorporating these additional units into the ASM varied by industry and province." (CANSIM Table 301-0003 Footnotes)
Unfortunately, because the average furniture manufacturer employs only about 24 workers, those industry stats varied considerably. The addition of 1,600 NAICS 337 manufacturers results in a 48 percent increase in establishments and a 14 percent increase in shipments. For NAICS 33712 "Household and Institutional Furniture Manufacturing," establishments increased from 696 to 1,586. (partial source)
As there is no way to bridge this great divide for the furniture sector, VCR has included the following graph for the years 2000 to 2007. Two graphs (pop-ups) that provide data for 1990 to 1999 (prior to the divide) are included for historical reference.
Percent Increase in Household and Institutional Furniture Shipments in Canada
Source, StatsCan, Table 304-0015 (NAICS 33712), 2007 extrapolated from January-August data.
** Note: The 2004 to 2007 data for British Columbia has recently been classified confidential by Statistics Canada.
Graphs for Historical Reference (pop-ups)
UPDATE: The Residential Furniture Industry in Canada
In November 2004 Strategis published a major up-date of its Canadian residential furniture profile. This extensive study is an excellent new resource providing the "great divide" issue (described above) is taken into consideration.
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