NAICS 21232Industry · 5-digitinternational market

Sand, gravel, clay, and ceramic and refractory minerals mining and quarrying

This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in operating sand and gravel pits, including dredging for sand and gravel; mining or quarrying shale; and mining, beneficiating or otherwise preparing kaolin or ball clay, including china clay, paper and slip clays, and other clays and refractory minerals. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 608
Under 10 employeesA: 60%
Establishments · USA: 2,551
Employment · USA: 34,689
Payroll · USA: $2.6B

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–416627%

5–919632%

10–1912721%

20–498514%

50–99274%

100–19971%

200–4990—

500+0—

Of 608 Canadian establishments with employees, 60% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario22838%

Quebec10617%

British Columbia10016%

Alberta9516%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction, US · opened 2020

75.4%

1 year

60%

3 years

48.5%

5 years

24.5%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 212, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

international competitionhigh capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 212 Mining and quarrying (except oil and gas)

Decade-long permitting and nine-figure capital. Aggregates and quarrying are the exception: local, haul-distance-bound and occasionally reachable.

Who sets the price: Global metal and mineral markets.
The software it runs on: Mine planning, geology modelling, fleet dispatch and safety systems.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Screened one level up. Nothing is filed at this exact code; the screen for 2123 Non-metallic mineral mining and quarrying covers it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 2123

Aggregate Pit & QuarryStructure decides

binding constraint: entry cost + regulatory drag

Most of this group by count is sand, gravel and crushed stone; the rest — potash, salt, diamonds, gypsum — is nine-figure mining that was not examined. The record at Ready-Mix Concrete & Aggregates argued from structure that the permit is the business. This one tests that with a price series, and the test holds. Vulcan Materials shipped 226.8 million tons in 2025 at a freight-adjusted US$21.98 a ton, up 4%, and kept US$11.33 of that as cash gross profit, up 7% [A]. A commodity that holds a better-than-50% cash margin and raises price through a soft construction year is not behaving like a commodity; it is behaving like a local franchise rationed by licence. Ontario shows the rationing: 3,565 licences on private land produced 167.9 million tonnes in 2023, down 3.2% [A] — yet only 348 Ontario establishments are classified to this code, so a large share of those licences evidently sit inside road builders and concrete producers who mine for their own jobs. That is the entrant's problem from both ends. A new licence means years of rezoning, hearings and appeals with no revenue; an existing one is bid for by Vulcan-type consolidators and by the local paving contractor who needs the stone more than any financial buyer does. 53% of the 1,028 establishments have fewer than ten employees, and they are mostly families who got their licence decades ago.

NAICS 21234 vendors named10 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

No vertical software market has been recorded along this branch. What the subsector typically runs on: Mine planning, geology modelling, fleet dispatch and safety systems.

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Who works here

The occupations employed in Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Underground miners, oil and gas drillers and related occupations One industry 83.4%

Contractors and supervisors, mining, oil and gas One industry 82.6%

Mine service workers and operators in oil and gas drilling One industry 82.1%

Mine and oil and gas drilling, services and related labourers One industry 79.4%

Managers in natural resources production and fishing Mostly one sector 60.6%

Natural resources engineers Mostly one sector 46.5%

Operators, drillers and blasters Mostly one sector 16.1%

Manufacturing and processing engineers Mostly one sector 8.1%

Crane operators and water well drillers Mostly one sector 4.8%

Machine operators and related workers in mineral and metal products processing and manufacturing One industry 4%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Technical inspectors and regulatory officers Across the economy 5.9%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 3%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 1.6%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 1.4%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 1.4%

Other technical trades Across the economy 1.4%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 1.3%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 1.1%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

2 rows sit directly beneath 21232. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
212323	Sand and gravel mining and quarrying	599	screened at 2123
212326	Shale, clay and refractory mineral mining and quarrying	9	screened at 2123

Alongside it, under 2123 Non-metallic mineral mining and quarrying

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
21231	Stone mining and quarrying	274	screened at 2123
21239	Other non-metallic mineral mining and quarrying	146	screened at 2123