Short‐term relocation versus long‐term migration: Implications for economic growth and human capital change

Abstract Driven by the growth of Canada's resource sector, interprovincial employees (IPEs), or individuals who work in one province and reside in another, have emerged as the main source for interprovincial worker mobility within Canada, with their numbers far exceeding the number of interprovincial migrants (individuals who permanently relocate from one province to another) on a yearly basis. As such, IPEs represent a significant number of workers and play an increasingly important role in the Canadian labour market, enabling individuals to respond to skill shortages and job opportunities over both the short and long term. This paper contrasts these two groups using a number of measures commonly used to characterise interprovincial migration. Results reveal that although the two groups are broadly similar, there are also subtle differences between the two groups, including differences in the age migration schedule and other sociodemographic characteristics of IPEs.