Despite the push from major employers to bring staff back to the office, new data shows that downtown Toronto, similar to the cores of other major Canadian cities, is still struggling to regain its pre-pandemic levels of activity.
According to figures from Toronto-based marketing and analytical services company Environics Analytics, foot traffic in downtown Toronto still remains significantly below where it stood before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted traditional office life.
As of April 2025, the number of office workers entering Toronto’s central business district is down about 43 per cent from January 2020 levels, and similar trends are also visible in Montreal and Vancouver, where foot traffic remains 50 per cent below pre-pandemic norms.
The data, provided exclusively to The Globe and Mail, measures anonymized cellphone movements to estimate the volume of office workers commuting into urban centres. The movements specifically focus on professional foot traffic and do not include retail customers or downtown residents.
From spring 2022, when most pandemic-related restrictions were lifted, there was a gradual uptick in workers returning to office buildings. However, according to the data, that recovery stalled in early 2024 and has largely plateaued through spring 2025, suggesting that hybrid work has indeed become the norm.
Although many companies continue to allow flexible work arrangements, several of Canada’s largest employers are taking a firmer stance, including RBC, BMO, and Scotiabank, which have all issued updated office mandates, requiring staff to be onsite four days a week starting this September.
Despite these mandates, the anticipated surge in downtown presence has failed to materialize, and foot traffic trends remain seasonal, often dipping in the summer and during the winter months due to vacations.
Other findings also support this data. According to CBRE’s Q1 2025 Canada Office Figures report, downtown Toronto’s office vacancy rate declined slightly, dropping by 50 basis points to 18.5 per cent, which is a modest improvement but still well above historical norms.
The drop in vacancy marks one of the first substantial improvements since office demand collapsed in early 2020. A walk through the core today feels much different than it did during the fourth quarter of 2019, when the vacancy rate was a fraction of what it is today, at just 2.2 per cent.
The months that followed saw the city centre hollowed out and foot traffic come to a standstill, leaving businesses relying on office workers in the lurch.
Small recoveries aside, with nearly one in five office spaces still empty, it’s clear that downtown Toronto is on a long road to recovery.
