Downtown Lethbridge. (Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Increasing job mobility could grow Alberta’s economy by $2.8-billion: report

Sep 30, 2020 | 11:11 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Changing provinces takes a lot of work, but a new study by the C.D. Howe Institute claims that making migration easier could give Alberta’s economy a major boost.

They say Alberta should open its doors to job seekers that want to move to the province from elsewhere in Canada.

“The gains from easing labour mobility restrictions are large. In this report, we find that for each 1,000 additional workers that move into Alberta in response to lower migration costs we estimate Alberta’s economy grows by $141 million. And if migration costs fall by 1 percent across the board, we estimate gains of nearly $9 billion. Better enabling Canadians to make this choice could provide a crucial support for Alberta’s economy at a time of transition,” reads a section of the report.

The authors state that government reforms to ease regulations on provincial professional certifications and standards or recognizing credentials issued by other provincial governments would make it much easier for certified workers to move from one province to another.

They believe that policies like these would encourage workers to move to Alberta, thus generating much higher economic activity.

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“If the cost of moving to Alberta declines by one-third of 1 percent (the equivalent of $500 per year) then we estimate roughly 20,000 additional workers will migrate to the province and the overall provincial GDP would increase by $2.8 billion – or just more than 0.8 percent. This is large. If migration costs decline by the equivalent of 1 percent of annual income, then the province’s GDP increases by nearly 2.6 percent or nearly $9 billion.”

A release from the Government of Alberta recognizes that many occupations and professions are inconsistently regulated across Canada and often require additional courses, examination, and other steps in order to change provinces.

By making this process easier and allowing more skilled workers to come to Alberta, Premier Jason Kenney says this study highlights what many already knew.

“The single biggest factor in Alberta’s economic growth and diversification over recent decades has been population growth, as hundreds of thousands of Canadians have brought their skills and work ethic to help build our province. Alberta has been by far the greatest beneficiary of job mobility within the Canadian Federation, but too many costly barriers still exist to labour mobility, barriers that cost our economy billions of dollars every year.”

Approximately 260,000 Canadians move from one province to another each year.

The full report from the C.D. Howe Institute can be found here.