The impact of interprovincial migration on aggregate output and labour productivity in Canada, 1987-2006

Total output gains are the result of two separate effects, the effect of employment gains as a result of interprovincial migration and the effect of the re-allocation of workers between different productivity levels. [...] As each origin province is also a destination province, by subtracting the total number of workers lost from the total number of workers gained it was possible to calculate the estimate of net migration of workers for every province (Table 10).15 To calculate the output effect of interprovincial migration, the estimates of net migration of workers were multiplied by the provincial average output p [...] It is possible to calculate the output effect of increased employment by multiplying the total number of jobs gained as a result of migration by a weighted average of output per worker productivity of the provinces with positive net migration (weighted by the share of net migration, Table 4C). [...] Unlike the sum of net population changes due to migration, the sum of net employment changes due to migration summed up to a value greater than zero during the 1987-2006 period reflecting the number of migrants who were unemployed or out of the labour force in their province of origin, but who found work in their province of destination. [...] The increase in the productivity gap was thus 24.3 per cent of the total output gains increase, with the increase in the migration of workers accounting for the rest.