NAICS 32211Industry · 5-digitinternational market

Pulp mills

This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing pulp from any material, by any process. These establishments sell or transfer the pulp to separate paper-making establishments; they do not make it into paper themselves. Establishments that process waste paper into pulp (de-inking plants) are included. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 45
Under 10 employeesA: 20%
Establishments · USA: 39
Employment · USA: 9,453
Payroll · USA: $941M

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

1–4920%

5–90—

10–1949%

20–4912%

50–9937%

100–199511%

200–4991431%

500+920%

Of 45 Canadian establishments with employees, 20% have fewer than ten — an industry where large establishments carry real weight.

Where they areA

British Columbia1431%

Quebec1022%

Ontario920%

Alberta613%

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 322, 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 322 Paper manufacturing

Mill-scale capital in a structurally shrinking product set. Converted products and packaging are the growing, more regional end.

Who sets the price: Global pulp and paper markets.
The software it runs on: Process-manufacturing and mill-wide control 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 3221 Pulp, paper and paperboard mills covers it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 3221

Pulp & Paper MillStructure decides

binding constraint: growth quality

The pre-screen cut this on capital, and a greenfield kraft mill is indeed beyond any ordinary entrant. But capital is not the honest reason, because the cut survives the capital being solved. What decides it is what a mill earns once you own it. Mercer International runs modern kraft mills in British Columbia, Alberta and Germany, sells into the same global price as everyone else, and in 2025 reported US$1,868.1M of revenue, a net loss of US$497.9M and Operating EBITDA of negative US$22.0M [A]. Inside that loss is a US$203.5M impairment of the Peace River, Alberta mill, taken, in the company's words, on the continued down-cycle in hardwood pulp; it realised US$743 a tonne for softwood kraft and US$549 for hardwood, and expects fibre costs to rise on supply constraints [A]. The mechanism is a squeeze from both sides that the owner controls neither of: the price is set in China and Europe, the wood cost is set by the same shrinking sawmill residual supply that the Sawmill & Wood-Preserving Plant and Value-Added Wood Manufacturing records describe — fewer sawmills running means fewer chips. The product set is not growing to compensate: newsprint and printing papers are in structural decline, and the growing grades, packaging board and tissue, are made by integrated companies that convert their own output. The size bands confirm there is no small end to start in — 67 of 138 establishments employ a hundred or more, and 14 employ over five hundred [A]. Solve the capital and the mill still loses money.

NAICS 32215 vendors named12 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: Process-manufacturing and mill-wide control systems.

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 →

Inside this industry

2 rows sit directly beneath 32211. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
322111	Mechanical pulp mills	13	screened at 3221
322112	Chemical pulp mills	32	screened at 3221

Alongside it, under 3221 Pulp, paper and paperboard mills

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
32212	Paper mills	53	screened at 3221
32213	Paperboard mills	40	screened at 3221