Finds more than 200,000 employees across the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) — or 13.5% — face potential exposure to US tariffs
More than 200,000 employees across the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) — roughly 13.5% of its workforce — are estimated to face potential exposure to US tariffs, according to an interactive tool built by researchers at the University of Toronto.
The tool, called Mapping Tariffs, lets employers and HR professionals see tariff exposure broken down by business count and employee headcount across Canadian municipalities, rather than relying on national averages that can obscure local risk.
Using data current to the round of tariffs imposed after Aug. 22, 2026, Mapping Tariffs estimates 3,027 businesses in Toronto — 3.2% of the total — face direct exposure, affecting roughly 66,000 employees, or 4% of the workforce who work in the city, CTV News reported.
In Vaughan, about 1,000 businesses (5.7%) carry direct exposure, translating into 32,555 employees working in the Vaughan census subdivision (12%), plus close to 12,000 residents employed elsewhere who could still feel the effects (6.7%), per the same CTV News report.
Windsor, Ont. — home to automotive assembly plants operated by Ford Motor Company and Stellantis — shows sharper exposure still: 4.5% of businesses and about 12,100 employees, or 11.6% of the local workforce, CTV News reported.
Useful tool about tariffs
The project has been led since May 2025 by Tara Vinodrai and Karen Chapple, professors at the University of Toronto, along with a team of researchers at the School of Cities. It maps direct exposure to tariffs on specific goods — including automotive parts, steel, copper, lumber, and energy and natural resources — at the neighbourhood and city level, according to the School of Cities.
Vinodrai, a professor at the University of Toronto's Institute for Management and Innovation in Toronto, told CTV News the tool is designed to help both the public and policymakers understand vulnerability at a granular level.
"We think it would be a useful tool to help explain to the public where the vulnerability to U.S. tariffs might be, but also to help policymakers at the local level understand very specifically, in a granular way," Vinodrai says, according to the report.
Why should HR be concerned?
For HR professionals, the tool's real value lies in what it reveals about uneven exposure. Vinodrai told CTV News that Toronto's diversified economic base cushions it relative to smaller, single-industry centres.
"It's clear in all of our analysis that this new round of tariffs basically widens and deepens the effects on Canadian cities and neighbourhoods. Toronto is not immune from that," she said. "But what's good in the case of Toronto... is it's got an incredibly diverse industrial base... It protects it a little more from the immediate impacts, as compared to some of the very specialized, smaller cities."
That distinction matters for workforce planning, a theme already explored in coverage of how Canadian employers should manage their workforce amid the tariffs war and how US tariffs are reshaping jobs and pay across key Canadian sectors. Employers in single-sector cities like Windsor may need contingency plans that diversified metros don't.
Broader business data reinforces the risk
The localized picture from Mapping Tariffs lines up with national figures. According to Statistics Canada's Canadian Survey on Business Conditions for the second quarter of 2026, released May 27, 2026, over one-third (34.0%) of all Canadian businesses expect US tariffs to negatively affect their operations over the next 12 months, with manufacturing (54.0%), wholesale trade (47.1%), and agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (46.3%) reporting the highest concern.
The same survey found 28.3% of businesses had already passed tariff-related cost increases onto customers over the prior 12 months, while a further 33.8% says they were likely to do so in the year ahead, Statistics Canada reported.
The Mapping Tariffs tool also lets users toggle between tariffed goods and those granted exclusions — relevant for smaller employers already flagging cost pressure, a trend that mirrors the small business confidence decline reported amid the US tariffs dispute.
Vinodrai told CTV News that municipalities are already using the data to shape local responses, including encouraging businesses to diversify export markets beyond the US.
