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December 15, 2023WHOLESALE TRADE, OCTOBER 2023 NOTE
Starting with the March 2023 reference month, petroleum products data are available within Statistics Canada's data on wholesale trade. This distorts year-over-year and year-to-date comparisons as well as the national inventory to sales ratio. The effect causes data for oil-producing regions to increase more rapidly than in other provinces.
Monthly (seasonally adjusted, October 2023 vs September 2023)
Nova Scotia wholesale trade decreased 0.7% to $1.33 billion. National wholesale trade increased 0.8% to $130.3 billion in October. Seven provinces reported an increase, led by Manitoba. Ontario reported the largest decline.
Year-over-year (seasonally adjusted, October 2023 vs October 2022)
Nova Scotia wholesale trade increased 13.2%. Canada's wholesale trade increased 56.1% with the recent inclusion of petroleum, oil seeds and grains in the data series. All provinces reported year over year increases in wholesale trade. Alberta, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador reported the largest gains. The gain in Prince Edward Island was the slowest.
Year-to-date (January-October 2023 vs January-October 2022)
Nova Scotia wholesale trade increased 9.7% in the first ten months of the year - the second slowest gain among provinces, ahead of Prince Edward Island. Canada's wholesale trade increased 47.0% (including the recent addition of petroleum, oil seeds and grains). All provinces reported year to date increases. Alberta, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador reported the largest year-to-date gains in wholesale trade.
The largest dollar contributions to Nova Scotia's to wholesale trade came from food and beverage wholesalers as well as building materials wholesalers, though both of these values were down year-to-date.
The largest percentage gains in Nova Scotia's to wholesale trade were among motor vehicle and parts wholesalers.
TRENDS
Over the past year, there has been high volatility in Nova Scotia's wholesale trade with several large declines and recoveries. Canada reported a very large increase as the data series was changed to include petroleum products.
Noting the break in the data series with the inclusion of petroleum products in March 2023, wholesale inventories have trended down as a share of sales in recent months, falling to 1.13 in September and October.
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 20-10-0074-01 Wholesale trade, sales (x 1,000); Table 20-10-0076-01 Wholesale trade, inventories (x 1,000)
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