Which Ontario counties have the most jobs tied to US demand

The United States has put tariffs on a widening range of Canadian goods since 2025: metals, vehicles and parts, lumber, and lists of Canadian products aimed at Canada alone. The tariffs page lists every instrument in force, read from its own text. The question for a county is narrower than the province's: how many of its residents' jobs exist because of what is sold to the United States, and how much of what its industries sell there now pays duty at the border?

Statistics Canada's table of exports by industry gives, for Ontario, the jobs in each industry that exist because of demand from the United States, and the exports themselves. It stops at the province. This analysis shares Ontario's 2022 figures among its counties by the industries their residents work in, and checks the method against every metropolitan export figure Statistics Canada publishes. Where the check fails, the counties in that area are not ranked; 44 counties are.

The ten with the largest share of jobs tied to US demand

Across Ontario, about 1,020,400 jobs, 16% of employed residents, existed because of demand from the United States in 2022. In Oxford, the highest, the share was 22%: about 12,600 jobs. In Kenora, the lowest of the 44, it was 9%.

Jobs tied to US demand, percent of employed residents, 2022. The ten highest counties are highlighted; the dashed line is Ontario. Each bar links to its county's page.

The full ranking, with every county's page, is on the county list. Counties close together on this chart are close together in fact: the share is an estimate, and a difference of a few tenths of a point is not a difference between two places.

Three things stand out

The jobs are not only in the cities. Of the ten, Oxford, Perth, Chatham-Kent and Haldimand-Norfolk lie outside every census metropolitan area. No published figure reaches them on their own; the figures here are an allocation, checked on the metropolitan areas and on Ontario's rural areas taken together, and the methods page says what that check can and cannot show.

Tied to US demand is not the same as paying duty. In June to August 2026, 25% of what Ontario's industries sell to the United States was in goods that paid US duty, at the rates the US Census Bureau records on imports from Canada. Among the ten, that share runs from 20% in Peel to 52% in Oxford; among all ranked counties it is highest in Algoma, at 61%. A county can have many jobs tied to US demand in industries that still cross the border free, and the reverse. These are shares of the value of what is sold, not of the jobs.

Jobs tied to US demand, and how much of what is sold there pays US duty. Each dot is a ranked county; the ten highest and the county with the highest share paying duty are named; the dashed lines are Ontario.

Each county's page names the industries. A share says how much; it does not say where. Every county page lists the five industries that hold the most of its jobs tied to US demand, the residents the census counted in each, and how much of each industry's US goods exports paid duty across Ontario. Across Ontario, 35% of US exports sit on tariff lines that a US tariff in force lists, and the duty paid came to 4.9% of the value of all of Ontario's US exports; relative to its US exports, the duty is highest in Algoma, at 27.8%. Listed goods may still enter free under CUSMA, which is why the share that paid duty is the one to read first.

Since 2022

The county figures describe 2022, the latest year Statistics Canada publishes jobs and exports by industry for Ontario. Ontario's goods exports to the United States from January to August 2026 changed by -1.1% against the same months a year earlier, and by +9.9% against the same months of 2022. Those are Ontario's published totals; they are not shared among counties here.

What these figures are, and are not

They are estimates. Each county figure assumes that a county's workers in an industry are tied to US demand as much as that industry's workers are across Ontario, so counties differ by the industries their residents work in, not by their own firms. Workers are counted where they live. Employment comes from the 2021 Census, taken during a stay-at-home order. No dollar figure is given for a county: the method supports shares and ranks better than it supports levels, and the methods page says why. The statements below give each limit in full, and the methods page gives the checks behind them.

If you plan for one of these counties, in workforce planning or economic development, your county's page sets out its figures in a few lines. I would like to know whether they match what you see, and what you would need to use them. How to reach me is on the about page.

Jeff Ahmadi

How the figures are made

The year. These figures describe the structure of Ontario's exports in 2022, the latest year Statistics Canada publishes exports by industry for Ontario. They describe the economy before the United States tariffs of 2025 and 2026. (method)
How a county figure is made. Ontario's exports of each industry (Statistics Canada 12-10-0100, detailed industries) are shared among counties by where that industry's workers live, counted in the 2021 Census by four-digit industry group (98-10-0592). Where the census groups are coarser than the export industries, the industries are pooled; retail and information are each pooled whole, and farms are one pool. Non-ferrous metals, whose exports are mostly refined gold, are shared by manufacturing employment instead. County figures assume each industry's workers in the county export as much per worker as that industry does across Ontario. Differences between counties come from which industries their residents work in, not from differences between firms. (method)
Where workers are counted. Workers are counted where they live (2021 Census, place of residence), not where they work. (method)
Estimated. Every county figure is an allocation, marked estimated; no county export figure is published by Statistics Canada. (method)
The census week. The 2021 Census counted employment in May 2021, during Ontario's pandemic stay-at-home order, when fewer people were working than in 2022. Figures per employed resident therefore read higher than they would on 2022 employment, more so where accommodation, food and retail work was shut. No adjustment is made. Jobs tied to US demand divide a count of jobs by a count of employed residents. (method)
Tariffs in force. The share on listed lines is the part of each industry's 2022 goods exports from Ontario to the United States (Statistics Canada, customs basis) that sits on tariff lines a US instrument in force lists, each line weighted by the United States' 2022 imports from Canada on it, applied to the industry's exports. The lines are matched to industries through the US Census Bureau's concordance of tariff lines to industries, and a line counts whole even where the tariff reaches only part of it, such as the metal content. Listed goods may still enter free under CUSMA. The share is not weighted by tariff rate; each instrument's rate is shown as its text reads. (method)
Duties paid. The share in goods that paid US duty, and the duty paid, apply what the US Census Bureau records on imports from Canada, product by product, over 2026-06 to 2026-08, to each industry's 2022 exports: Canada-wide rates by product, not the county's own firms' CUSMA claims. (method)
Tariffed, not yet in the duty data. Goods on lines first tariffed by an instrument that took effect after the first month of the duty data are counted separately; no rate is applied to them. The duty data covers them for only part of its months. (method)

Sources and notices

Published 2026-10-14. Figures rest on Ontario's exports in 2022; US duties paid, 2026-06 to 2026-08; US tariffs as of 2026-10-14.

Adapted from Statistics Canada, table 12-10-0100-01, Value added in exports, by industry, provincial and territorial (2022); table 98-10-0592-01, Class of worker by industry groups, labour force status, age and gender, Canada, provinces and territories and census divisions (2021 Census); the Canadian International Merchandise Trade Database, domestic exports to the United States by product (2022); table 12-10-0138-01, Trade in goods by exporter characteristics, by industry of establishment and census metropolitan area (2021 and 2022); table 98-10-0448-01, Industry groups by class of worker including job permanency, labour force status, age and gender, Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations with parts (2021 Census); table 12-10-0173-01, Merchandise trade by province and country, by product sections, annual (2022 to the latest full year); table 12-10-0175-01, International merchandise trade by province, commodity and principal trading partners, monthly (2022 to the latest month). This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product. The data are used under the Statistics Canada Open Licence.

This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau. US imports from Canada by tariff line, and the duties recorded on them, are from the US Census Bureau's international trade data.

Pendalogue is independent. It is not affiliated with Statistics Canada, the Government of Canada or the US Census Bureau, and uses no logo or symbol of theirs.