When neighbours stop knocking: Canada’s 2025 tourism drop cost US service jobs
Mar 9th 2026
A 25% drop in Canadian visitors during 2025 drove focused job losses in US retail and hospitality, with small businesses in border and tourist towns hit hardest, researchers find.
- Canadian visits to the US fell about 25% in 2025 after escalating geopolitical tensions.
- Researchers combined smartphone foot-traffic data from Advan with payroll records from Homebase to measure exposure and impacts.
- Establishments in highly exposed markets employed roughly 6% fewer workers by mid-2025 relative to less exposed peers.
- There were no significant changes in average hours or hourly wages, indicating job losses occurred mainly through layoffs.
- Under conservative assumptions, the decline cost between 14,000 and 42,000 jobs concentrated in border communities and major tourist hubs.