This new FOCAL paper provides an overview of some of the key recent impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on the automotive production sector in Canada. In this paper you will find:

• a chronological overview of the pandemic’s immediate impacts on the sector’s production and employment, as well as its eventual return to full production;

• an overview of initial responses to the pandemic by government and the sector;

• insight into significant changes in the gender and age composition of the sector’s workforce a year into the pandemic;

• an accounting of the sector’s pivot to production of personal protective equipment and other pandemic related equipment; and

• commentary on the sector’s level of technological change as related to the pandemic.