demographics
THE PLUSES AND MINUSES OF BC’S INTERPROVINCIAL MIGRATION FLOWS A second straight quarter of population losses to other provinces is in the books—a trend worth watching.
Migration flows between provinces and territories are inherently cyclical. With BC as the focal point, there is considerable ebb and flow in the exchange of people with our next door neighbour, Alberta, largely driven by the relative economic performance of the two provinces. For 17 straight quarters leading up to Q3 2018, BC gained more people than it lost from Alberta due to steady employment growth (and a low and declining unemployment rate) in the former and a depressed energy sector (and growing unemployment) in the latter. More recently the tide has turned, with BC losing 871 people to Alberta in Q3 2018 and an additional 477 in Q4, influenced by continued improvements in labour market conditions in both Calgary and Edmonton.
While there are no indications oil prices are poised for a permanent rebound, the employment landscape will likely continue to improve, at the margins, in Alberta. This means that at worst BC may continue to experience some resident leakage to our neighbour or, at best, not benefit from huge inflows in the near-term. Meanwhile, Manitoba and Saskatchewan continue to provide much-needed labour force participants to BC (combined, 285 people on a net basis came to BC in Q4 from those two provinces), along with Newfoundland and New Brunswick (271 combined). Looking ahead, these recent interprovincial trends (lower levels) are likely to continue to prevail as economies outside of BC grow and labour markets tighten—barring any unforeseen, landscape-shifting economic events, that is.
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