New Research Shows People aren’t willing to move for jobs

A study from Statistics Canada shows more people want to stay closer to family and friends than moving away to a different province for work.

The research looked into the reasons why people decide not to move to different parts of Canada for employment

The study shows one-third of unemployed individuals reported a willingness to accept job offers from outside their home province, but more than 4 out of 10 reported being willing to accept job offers in other cities closer to home.

Overall, 36% of unemployed individuals reported that they would not accept job offers in other cities because they wanted to stay close to family and friends or to take care of relatives, or because their spouse or children would not want to move.

Close to 15% responded that they would not change cities because moving would be too demanding, housing would be too expensive elsewhere, or for financial reasons.

Economist for Statistics Canada Rene Morissette says another big factor in the study was how well the economy is performing.

“When the oil prices increase sharply during the 2001 to 2008. We saw a fairly large number of young men moving from the non-oil producing provinces to Alberta.”

This is the first time a study has directly asked people why they wouldn’t move if they were offered a job in another part of Canada.

Before people had speculated on the factors behind why people decide not to pack up and move away says Morissette.

“People have often been talking about the difficulty of having ones credentials recognized outside ones province. When we asked this question, very few people reported the main reason they would not move because of a problem of credentials”

This study sheds a new light on how researchers will start looking at labour mobility.