B.C. is among only two provinces in Canada who retain and attract more young skilled workers than they lose, but Alberta tops B.C. by a double-digit margin.
That is the finding of a new study from Statistics Canada that compares the place of work with the place where young skilled workers received their post-secondary education.
It shows that B.C. had seven per cent more young skilled workers in 2019 than its initial base of those who completed post-secondary education in B.C. between 2010 to 2017. That puts B.C. second to Alberta, with 22 per cent. Canada’s three territories also gained more young skilled workers than they lost.
All other provinces lost more skilled youth than they gained.
Canada’s three Atlantic provinces and Newfoundland and Labrador recorded the largest brain drain, ranging from 25 per cent to Prince Edward Island to 10 per cent in Nova Scotia. New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador were at 17 per cent each. Ontario and Quebec recorded a net loss of two per cent each, while Saskatchewan and Manitoba recorded a net loss of eight and seven per cent respectively.
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The study also looked at which types of post-secondary graduates provinces attracted and lost. It found B.C. was the largest net gainer of medical degree graduates with 30 per cent. Ontario was the other net gainer of medical graduates with two per cent. Alberta came out even.
British Columbia also net-gained the most PhDs with 40 per cent, followed by Alberta with 30 per cent. All other provinces minus Nova Scotia (plus one per cent) lost PhDs.
Generally, B.C. was a net gainer across all surveyed fields, but Alberta topped B.C. in all categories, often by double-digit margins.
B.C. was most competitive in the category of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Other — which includes the field of biology.
The study matters for two reasons.
First, education is within provincial or territorial jurisdiction and “understanding how many young skilled people are lost or gained because of migration patterns” can inform policy decisions.
Second, the study broadly points to the attractiveness of provinces and it appears against the backdrop of growing concerns about the attractiveness of B.C. in the face of housing availability, inflation and public safety.
New findings from Statistics Canada that show more people left than arrived in B.C. in 2023 for the first time in more than a decade (2012) with net inter-provincial migration reaching minus 8,624. While 59,370 Canadians moved to B.C. in 2023, 67,994 left B.C. in 2023 with 55 per cent of them leaving for Alberta.
But B.C.’s population continues to grow thanks to international migration with B.C.’s population having reached 5.6 million at the end of 2023.