Employment in Canadian industries that depend on US demand fell by 18,100 jobs between December 2024 and August 2025, a decline of 1.4%, according to a new Statistics Canada report.
During the same period, total payroll employment remained essentially unchanged, while employment in industries less dependent on US demand rose by 38,100 jobs.
The findings appear in “Recent employment trends in industries dependent on U.S. demand,” released today in Economic and Social Reports.
Slower hiring behind decline
While layoffs remained unchanged over the summer compared to previous years, hiring has slowed, according to the report. A rising number of people remained unemployed from one month to the next during the period examined.
Statistics Canada said slower hiring may have contributed to lower employment levels in industries dependent on US demand in 2025. US tariffs on goods imported from Canada remain ongoing and in flux, making it difficult to determine the full employment impact.
Small firms account for 60% of productivity gap
A separate Statistics Canada study found that Canada’s relatively high number of small, less productive firms accounts for 60% of the labour productivity gap between Canada and the United States.
In 2019, small firms with fewer than 500 employees generated 56% of nominal GDP in Canada, compared with 45% in the United States, according to “The role of firm size in the Canada–U.S. labour productivity gap since 2000.”
Canadian small firms operated at 70% of the productivity level of their US counterparts, while Canadian large firms reached 87% of US productivity levels. Overall, Canadian business sector labour productivity stood at 73% of the US level, representing a 27-percentage-point gap.
Canada’s higher share of small firms explained six percentage points of this gap, while the lower productivity of Canadian small firms accounted for 10 percentage points. The remaining 11 percentage points reflected the lower productivity of Canadian firms overall.
Between 2002 and 2019, labour productivity in Canada grew by an average of 0.84% per year, compared with 1.56% in the United States. The divergence reflected weaker productivity growth among all Canadian firms, combined with a shift in hours worked toward smaller, lower-productivity firms.
Education closes employment gap for immigrants with disabilities
Higher education eliminates the employment gap between immigrants with disabilities and those without disabilities, according to a third Statistics Canada study.
The research found that 77% of immigrant women with disabilities who held a bachelor’s degree or higher were employed in 2021, similar to the rate for immigrant women without disabilities.
Among immigrant women with a high school diploma or less, 36% of those with disabilities were employed, compared with 53% of those without disabilities—a 17-percentage-point gap.
The study, “Educational attainment and employment among immigrants with disabilities,” found a similar pattern among immigrant men.
