NAICS 33531Industry · 5-digitnational market

Electrical equipment manufacturing

This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing equipment that generates and distributes electrical power. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 359
Under 10 employeesA: 43%
Establishments · USA: 1,840
Employment · USA: 119,362
Payroll · USA: $8.8B

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

1–410128%

5–95515%

10–194914%

20–497621%

50–994011%

100–199206%

200–499123%

500+62%

Of 359 Canadian establishments with employees, 43% have fewer than ten — an industry where large establishments carry real weight.

Where they areA

Ontario13136%

Quebec11933%

Alberta4312%

British Columbia3610%

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 335, 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.

national competitionmedium capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 335 Electrical equipment, appliance and component manufacturing

Certification and distributor relationships are the barriers. Electrification is pulling demand forward for transformers and switchgear, where lead times are long.

Who sets the price: Distributors and specifiers; utilities for grid equipment.
The software it runs on: Manufacturing ERP and certification tracking.

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 3353 Electrical equipment manufacturing covers it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 3353

Transformer & Switchgear PlantStructure decides

binding constraint: entry cost

This is one of the few manufacturing groups where the demand story is real, and the screen should say so. Hammond Power Solutions of Guelph — the listed Canadian dry-type transformer maker — reported record 2025 sales of C$898.3M, up 13.9%, and a year-end backlog 122% higher than a year earlier, driven by US data-centre, infrastructure and electrification work [A]. Roughly C$632M of that was sold into the US and Mexico against C$234M in Canada [A], so a Canadian plant can reach the continental market. Lead times are long and buyers are short of supply. The cut is what has to be sunk before a utility, an OEM or an electrical distributor will place the first order. Every design must be type-tested and certified to CSA and UL standards; custom-engineered units — the part Hammond says is outgrowing standard product — are sold on an engineering record the entrant does not have; and the channel is a small number of electrical distributors and private-label partners who already have a supplier. Hammond itself spent C$35.6M on capacity in 2025, 'at the low end' of its plan, while gross margin fell from 32.8% to 30.3% [A] — the incumbents are adding the capacity the shortage invites. This is not a clean kill. The size bands — 156 of 359 establishments under ten people — point at a reachable end the screen did not test: the certified control-panel and switchboard shop (335315), which assembles bought components to a customer's drawing and needs a shop listing rather than a plant. A full study should start there.

NAICS 33535 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: Manufacturing ERP and certification tracking.

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

3 rows sit directly beneath 33531. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
335311	Power, distribution and specialty transformers manufacturing	92	screened at 3353
335312	Motor and generator manufacturing	66	screened at 3353
335315	Switchgear and switchboard, and relay and industrial control apparatus manufacturing	201	screened at 3353