Each month Trendex North America publishes a monthly newsletter: Canadian Apparel Insights The following charts are taken from the December 2022 issue of the newsletter.

Canadian Apparel Manufacturing Sales

In June 2022 apparel manufacturing was up 19.1% and then the “bottom fell out”.

Beginning in July, monthly apparel manufacturing sales began to consistently decrease at double digit rates.

Canadian retailers demand for foreign made apparel continued to remain strong during the rst eleven months of 2022 as they increased in dollar terms by 36.9%. The increase was in large part due to China (+32.9%), Vietnam (+56.7%), Bangladesh (+45.0%), India (+56.5%), Italy (+29.2%) and Indonesia (+47.6%). Imports from the U.S. increased (+16.9%).

Canadian apparel exports decreased by 15.6% in November after increasing by 8.6% the previous month.

Through the rst eleven months of 2022 Canada’s apparel exports increased by only 3.2% while those to the United States, which alone accounted for 74% of exports increased 4.6%. The Covid related lockdown in parts of China was re ected in the 22.9% Year-To-Date decrease in exports to China.

Countries that recorded large increases in their imports of Canadian apparel included the Netherlands (+25.4%), and Poland (+616.7%). In addition to China, exports to Germany (-30.4%), Hong Kong (-10.0%) and Japan (-15.8%) declined year to date.

In November 2022 Canadian apparel manufacturing declined 28.7%, marking the fourth consecutive month that Canadian apparel manufacturing decreased by more than 20%.

Year-to-date through November 2022, Canadian apparel manufacturing sales were up only 1.1%.

Trendex has added a new monthly metric based on Mastercard’s Canadian Spending Pulse. The time series measures in-store and online retail sales except for automotive sales, across all forms of payment. The company’s latest report revealed that total retail sales increased 3.8% during November 2022. The increase came on top of increases of 9.1% and 12.3% during the previous two months. During November retail apparel sales increased 3.2%. The increase was less than those in October (7.7%) and September (34.3%). Compared to the comparable months of 2019, retail apparel sales during 2022 decreased 6.6% in November after increasing 3.9% and 20.4% from October and September. The report pointed to a continual slowdown in retail apparel sales during the fourth quarter of 2022.