Trump’s tariffs could put 87,200 Canadians jobs at risk; Ontario and Quebec to be hit the hardest: report

Mark Carney talking to workers at an Ontario Line construction site. Photo by Peter Power /Peter Power

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An economist has put the job losses from the new U.S. tariffs at an estimated 87,200.

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Trevor Tombe, a professor of economics at the University of Calgary, estimated in an analysis published by The Hub that the tariffs put a little over 87,000 Canadian jobs at risk. He said in an email to National Post that his model produces 87,200, and that he does not want to portray false precision in a number carrying that much uncertainty. “87K is no different than 90K.”

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The analysis said losses on that scale would push the national unemployment rate from 6.4 per cent to 6.8. What happens to the rate depends on what the workers who lose those jobs decide to do, Tombe wrote, because the rate counts only people who are working or looking for work. “If they exit the labour force, then they’re no longer in the denominator either so the unemployment may not change. If they search for other work, then the unemployment would increase. We can’t know.”

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The tariffs took effect Saturday, hours after Prime Minister Mark Carney suspended trade talks with Washington. Carney said in a statement they cover roughly $28 billion in Canadian goods, and that Canada will match them dollar-for-dollar.

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About 52,000 of the jobs Tombe counted sit at exporters hit directly. The other 35,000 sit at the suppliers and service firms that sell to them, which is why the losses reach provinces the tariffs barely touch.

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Ontario would take the largest share at roughly 36,000 jobs, Tombe estimated, followed by 18,000 in Quebec, 11,000 in British Columbia and 9,000 in Alberta. Transportation and warehousing would take the largest hit of any sector once those indirect effects are counted, with trucking a significant share as trade volumes fall.

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Nine thousand jobs is about 0.3 per cent of Alberta’s labour force, Tombe wrote. The province went into the tariffs with an unemployment rate of 7.0 per cent in July, the second highest among the provinces and tied with New Brunswick, according to Statistics Canada.

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Carney said Saturday Canada’s countermeasures take effect on Sept. 8, the Tuesday after Labour Day, and will be concentrated in steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper and electronics. They will also cover goods already hit by earlier American tariffs.

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Direct losses land in agriculture, electronics, textiles, furniture and plastics, Tombe wrote in the analysis. The estimate rests on an assumption he calls overly simplistic, that a 50 per cent tariff produces a 50 per cent drop in sales.

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He wrote that imports of the goods Canada tariffed last year fell roughly in line with those tariffs, and that assuming the same one-for-one relationship here is not a bad approach. “What the actual effect is depends on factors that are not currently knowable, especially how long the tariffs last.”

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Tombe wrote that nothing in his numbers changed when the tariffs went live. “They were always forward looking estimates, and the uncertainty remains as high now as before.”

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