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January 15, 2024WHOLESALE TRADE, NOVEMBER 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, November 2023 vs October 2023)
Nova Scotia wholesale trade increased 0.3% to $1.34 billion. National wholesale trade decreased 2.9% to $123.3 billion in November. Five provinces reported an increase, led by New Brunswick. Alberta reported the largest decline.
Year-over-year (seasonally adjusted, November 2023 vs November 2022)
Nova Scotia wholesale trade increased 18.3%. Canada's wholesale trade increased 49.1% 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, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador reported the largest gains. The gain in Ontario was the slowest.
Year-to-date (January-November 2023 vs January-November 2022)
Nova Scotia wholesale trade increased 10.5% in the first eleven months of the year - the second slowest gain among provinces, ahead of Prince Edward Island. Canada's wholesale trade increased 46.8% (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 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, though the value has stabilized in recent months. Canada reported a very large increase as the data series was changed to include petroleum products.
After the break in the data series with the inclusion of petroleum products in March 2023, wholesale inventories trended down as a share of sales, but there has been a recovery in recent months, rising to 1.15 in November.
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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