NAICS 31611Industry · 5-digitinternational market

Leather and hide tanning and finishing

This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in tanning, currying, colouring and finishing hides and skins into leather. Leather converters, who buy hides and skins and have them processed into leather by others, on a contract basis, are included. Establishments primarily engaged in dressing and dyeing fur are also included. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 23
Under 10 employeesA: 74%
Establishments · USA: 167
Employment · USA: 3,121
Payroll · USA: $171M

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

1–41565%

5–929%

10–1929%

20–49313%

50–9914%

100–1990—

200–4990—

500+0—

Of 23 Canadian establishments with employees, 74% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario730%

Quebec417%

Alberta417%

British Columbia417%

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

Manufacturing, US · opened 2020

86.2%

1 year

70.8%

3 years

58.4%

5 years

45.3%

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 316, 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 competitionlow capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 316 Leather and allied product manufacturing

Bench-scale production is easy to start and hard to distribute. The constraint is attention rather than manufacture.

Who sets the price: Global brands set the reference; imports set the floor.
The software it runs on: Little beyond e-commerce and order management.

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 3161 Leather and hide tanning and finishing covers it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 3161

Small Tannery & Hide FinishingOne thing must be true

binding constraint: market size

The pre-screen called tanning permitted, capital-heavy and shrinking, which is a fair description of an industrial tannery — drums, chrome or vegetable liquors, effluent treatment and the approvals that go with them. But the Canadian group is not industrial: 15 of its 23 establishments have one to four employees, which looks like custom tanners, fur dressers and converters rather than beamhouses. So the reachable proposition exists — a small tannery finishing hides for hunters, farms and the bench makers screened in the Small-Batch Leather Goods record. The cut is simpler than permits or plant. The entire Canadian industry earned $30.7M in 2024, down from $39.9M in 2019, with an $8.4M payroll [A]. That is every tannery, converter and fur dresser in the country combined — and it left $1.1M between total revenue and total expenses [A]. Even the US, with 167 establishments, employs only 3,121 people in it [A]. An entrant who captured a tenth of the Canadian industry would have a $3M business, and would have had to take it from owner-operators who are already there. The cut is market size: there is no version of winning here that is large, and the permitting and effluent costs the pre-screen named are what you would pay for the privilege.

NAICS 31614 vendors named8 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: Little beyond e-commerce and order management.

Catalogued categories — named, not analysed

Discrete manufacturing ERP SaaS 31-33

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 Manufacturing, 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

Aircraft assemblers and aircraft assembly inspectors One industry 91.3%

Supervisors, assembly and fabrication One industry 88.3%

Machine operators and related workers in pulp and paper production and wood processing and manufacturing One industry 86.1%

Managers in manufacturing and utilities One industry 84.4%

Machine operators and related workers in chemical, plastic and rubber processing One industry 82.7%

Mechanical, electrical and electronics assemblers and inspectors One industry 82.3%

Machine operators and related workers in food, beverage and associated products processing One industry 79.1%

Machine operators and related workers in mineral and metal products processing and manufacturing One industry 77.7%

Furniture, wood, plastic and other products assemblers, finishers and inspectors One industry 73.9%

Machine operators and related workers in textile, fabric, fur and leather products processing and manufacturing One industry 70.8%

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

Other technical trades Across the economy 20%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 16.3%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 15.2%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 11.6%

Technical inspectors and regulatory officers Across the economy 10.7%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 9.6%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 9.2%

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 8.3%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 7.7%

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 4.8%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. But note the shape of this industry: 74% of establishments have fewer than ten employees, and at that size most of these roles are one person wearing several hats, or bought in from outside.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

1 row sits directly beneath 31611. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
316110	Leather and hide tanning and finishing	23	screened at 3161