NAICS 33131Industry · 5-digitinternational market

Alumina and aluminum production and processing

This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in extracting alumina generally from bauxite ore; producing aluminum from alumina; refining aluminum by any process; and rolling, drawing, casting, extruding and alloying aluminum and aluminum-based alloy basic shapes. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 99
Under 10 employeesA: 41%
Establishments · USA: 442
Employment · USA: 58,231
Payroll · USA: $4.2B

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

1–42323%

5–91818%

10–191111%

20–491010%

50–991212%

100–19988%

200–4991212%

500+55%

Of 99 Canadian establishments with employees, 41% have fewer than ten — an industry where large establishments carry real weight.

Where they areA

Ontario4343%

Quebec4242%

British Columbia1010%

Alberta33%

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 331, 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 331 Primary metal manufacturing

Not an entry market. Foundries are the reachable fringe and are closing faster than they open.

Who sets the price: Global metal markets and trade policy.
The software it runs on: Process and plant-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 3313 Alumina and aluminum production and processing covers it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 3313

Primary Aluminum SmelterStructure decides

binding constraint: capital intensity

Canada is a serious aluminum country — about 3.3 million tonnes of primary metal in 2024 from ten smelters, nine of them in Quebec, and C$17.4B of aluminum exports, 91% to the United States [A]. The pre-screen called smelting "power-contract economics", which is true and incomplete: the power contract decides whether a smelter lives, but the pot line decides whether anyone but a major can build one. Rio Tinto has just priced that. In 2023 it approved 96 new AP60 pots at its Saguenay complex for US$1.1B, adding about 160,000 tonnes a year; by the time commissioning began in 2026 the company was describing a US$1.5B expansion [A]. That is roughly US$9,400 per tonne of annual capacity, for a brownfield addition by the owner of the technology, on a site that already had the power, the port and the alumina. A greenfield entrant has none of those and would need a multi-decade hydro block that Quebec allocates as industrial policy, not as a product for sale. The rest of the group — rolling, extruding, alloying, secondary remelt — is where most of the 99 Canadian establishments sit, and the size bands are bimodal: 41 have fewer than ten employees, 25 have a hundred or more. Extrusion is the conceivable entry point, a press and a die shop serving window, trailer and solar-racking makers. It was not examined here, and nothing in this record should be read as a verdict on it. It would need its own screen, and that screen would start from billet supply: the press buys its metal from the same smelter owners at the exchange price plus a regional premium, and sells a shape its customer can re-quote.

NAICS 33134 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: Process and plant-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 33131. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
331313	Primary production of alumina and aluminum	27	screened at 3313
331317	Aluminum rolling, drawing, extruding and alloying	72	screened at 3313