It’s no secret that Newfoundland and Labrador has a historical problem with out-migration. This issue compounded with an ageing population and low birth rates represents a significant barrier to the province’s economic health. As the province faces challenges with getting native-born Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to live, work, raise families and thereby contribute to the economy and workforce here, an increased flow of immigrants to the province could be a way of mitigating the problems arising from a dwindling population. 

According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, while 1,475 people moved to the province from elsewhere in Canada and immigration accounted for 230 more people coming to the province in the first quarter of 2019, a total of 2618 people left the province for elsewhere in Canada. This resulted in a net decrease of 913 people in the province. If this trend continues at the current rate, the provincial government has projected that by 2025, Newfoundland and Labrador will experience a 10% decline in its working-age population resulting in 35,000 fewer people in the provincial workforce. It’s in the best interest of the business community in Newfoundland and Labrador for the Government to increase the number of immigrants it accepts. Increased levels of immigration to the province will benefit businesses by alleviating some of the difficulty they experience in filling positions that the current labour force can not fill thereby allowing businesses to be more productive and profitable. 

Increased levels of immigration wouldn’t only alleviate some of the issues around labour shortages but an increased population would constitute a larger customer base for many businesses. Related to this is the conversation about expanding infrastructure to accommodate an increasing population. If the number of people coming to the province becomes net positive, there will be a requirement to expand the existing infrastructure to accommodate the increasing number of people which, in turn, would create construction and engineering employment opportunities. Working immigrants also positively contribute to the provincial tax revenue required to support government social and economic programs, which help keep costs of public services from rising. To reinforce this point, a British academic study examining immigrant contribution to the economy determined that, between 1995 and 2011, immigrants actually lowered the cost of some public services.

If Newfoundland and Labrador saw a substantial increase in the amount of immigrants brought into the province, areas of employment that the native population tend to avoid may suddenly have an increased number of applicants thereby making the businesses function more effectively. According to CFIB, one out of 20 jobs in Canada remain unfilled due to an inability to find suitably skilled labour. Moreover, studies have shown that immigrants tend to make up a noticeable portion of small business owners. Around half of Silicon Valley startups, for example, including Google, LinkedIn, Tesla and Stripe were co-founded by immigrants. Entrepreneurship and in particular small businesses tend to be good indicators of economic health because they indicate that there is a high level of free market competition as opposed to a few large corporations having virtual monopolies on certain industries. As increased immigration adds increasing levels of diversity to a population, it also tends to increase the amount of new ideas. According to The Economist, more than three quarters of patents generated at top American universities involved a migrant inventor. 

Because immigrants coming to Newfoundland and Labrador tend to be younger, increased levels of immigration to the province, along with assisting with the labour shortage in the province and bringing new ideas to the province, have the potential to lower our median age (the point at which half of the population is younger and the other half is older). This is significant because younger people tend not to be a major draw on average on healthcare and other services while employed immigrants would pay taxes and help fund these services for the ageing members of the population. A recently completed Canadian study found that immigrants use social safety nets less frequently than people born in Canada while helping maintain unfunded liabilities such as the Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security and the public healthcare system.

Research has also suggested that increased levels of immigration are linked to increased levels of Foreign Direct Investment and export trade. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is an investment made by a firm or individual in Country A into business interests in Country B. These types of trade and investment connections are valuable because it potentially allows Canada to gain access to markets and opportunities that it wouldn’t normally have access to.  

The dwindling population in Newfoundland and Labrador is cause for concern from the perspective of the business community. There are existing issues with the labour force in this province as well as issues around specific industries that immigrants would likely fill. These issues will only get worse if the province doesn’t take steps to stop the shrinking of the population of Newfoundland and Labrador. An increase in the number of immigrants brought in to the province would be one of a myriad of solutions that work to ease the burden of the shrinking workforce and all of the issues that go along with it.