NAICS 321111Canadian industry · 6-digitregional market

Sawmills (except shingle and shake mills)

This Canadian industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing boards, dimension lumber, timber, poles and ties, and siding, from logs and bolts. These establishments produce lumber that may be rough, or dressed by a planing machine to achieve smoothness and uniformity of size, but (except in the case of siding) is generally not further worked or shaped. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 609
Under 10 employeesA: 40%

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

1–415626%

5–98614%

10–198814%

20–4910317%

50–996511%

100–1996711%

200–499427%

500+20%

Of 609 Canadian establishments with employees, 40% have fewer than ten — an industry where large establishments carry real weight.

Where they areA

Quebec21034%

British Columbia14824%

Ontario11018%

Alberta437%

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.

No US figure is shown. County Business Patterns is coded to the 2017 US edition of NAICS; this code either does not exist there, names a different industry, or is outside the programme's coverage (most of agriculture, rail, postal and public administration are). A figure is attached only where both the code and the title agree.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 321, 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.

regional competitionhigh capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 321 Wood product manufacturing

Sawmilling is a commodity tied to fibre supply. Value-added work — millwork, trusses, engineered components — is regional, freight-protected and more reachable.

Who sets the price: Lumber and panel commodity markets; builders for value-added products.
The software it runs on: Mill optimisation, inventory and log accounting.

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 3211 Sawmills and wood preservation covers it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 3211

Sawmill & Wood-Preserving PlantStructure decides

binding constraint: capital intensity

Two businesses share this code and they have opposite years. Wood preservation is the attractive one: Stella-Jones sold C$3,492M of treated poles, ties and lumber in 2025 at an 18.9% EBITDA margin, with utility products alone at C$1,822M and rising [A]. But its customers are electric utilities and Class I railways buying on multi-year supply programmes, its moat is a continental network of treating plants plus pole-quality fibre under contract, and it spent C$259M on acquisitions in 2025 absorbing what adjoins it [A]. A new treating plant is a permitted, capital-heavy site with two or three possible customers per region, each already supplied. Sawmilling is the reachable-looking one and the numbers are worse. The Value-Added Wood Manufacturing record cuts small sawmilling on fibre supply; this screen adds what happens at the border. Interfor lost C$344.4M on C$2,805.9M of sales in 2025, booked a C$69.1M impairment on its Eastern Canadian mills, and has US$663.5M of cumulative duties on deposit; the combined countervailing and anti-dumping rate is 35.16%, with a further 10% Section 232 tariff on top [A]. That is cash paid before the customer pays, on a commodity averaging C$599 per thousand board feet in the fourth quarter. The size bands say this is a plant industry — 199 of 726 establishments employ fifty or more [A] — and a mill is sunk capital whose working capital is then taxed at the border. The small custom and portable mills that make up the bottom of the count sell locally and avoid the duty, and are the subject of the other record.

NAICS 32117 vendors named13 sourced figuresOpen →

Filed above — wider than this industry

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 321 Wood product manufacturing

Value-Added Wood Manufacturing & Small SawmillingStructure decides

binding constraint: growth quality

The constraint is fibre, and it is getting worse rather than better. Canfor wound down its Polar sawmill north of Prince George explicitly for 'a shortage of economically available fibre', removing about 140 million board feet over six months, and West Fraser lost $937M on sales that fell to $5.462B from $6.174B under softwood duties, oversupply and soft demand. A small entrant buys fibre in the same market as those two and sells into the same prices, without their tenure. The value-added niches — mass timber components, remanufacturing — are real and they sit downstream of a supply problem no operator can solve alone.

NAICS 3213 vendors named9 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: Mill optimisation, inventory and log accounting.

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. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.

All 162 occupations →

Alongside this industry

This is the most specific level NAICS defines. The other industries under 32111 are its nearest neighbours.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
321112	Shingle and shake mills	41	screened at 3211
321114	Wood preservation	76	screened at 3211