Remote and hybrid work have become more common since COVID. This has all sorts of implications for the workplace and homelife. But what about interprovincial migration patterns?

In a report released yesterday, we looked at why so many people are moving to Alberta from other provinces. Yes, job growth has been relatively strong in Alberta. But interprovincial migration is not following the usual pattern: an energy boom that leads to a tight labour market, luring workers from the rest of the country.

We find that housing affordability has taken on an outsized role. And under that theme, one of the factors we highlighted was the growing importance of remote work.

Most think of working from home for an employer in the same city or town, or perhaps within the same province. But what about working for an employer in another province or territory?

Remote work allows for physical separation of work location and residency. This could make interprovincial migrants more responsive to non-work related factors (like housing affordability). For example, a recent paper by the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy argues that a higher cost of living in major cities and remote/hybrid work arrangements have encouraged many people to move from large cities to smaller communities.

So how many remote workers reporting to an employer in another province are there? Conveniently, Statistics Canada has asked that very question in a previous Labour Force Survey (June 2022). It just wasn’t available by province, so ATB Economics requested a special tabulation from Statistics Canada.

Here’s what the data show:

• There were an estimated 185,600 remote workers who spent most of their work hours at home and reported to an office in another province or territory.*
• A disproportionate number of these workers were Alberta residents: 41,800 (or about 22.5% of the national total, well above Alberta’s 11.6% share of the population that year).
• Not surprisingly, as the most populous province, Ontario is home to the largest number of remote workers reporting to an employer in another province or territory at 49,100. 
• Quebec ranks third at 32,300, followed by B.C. at 29,500. 

Ontario, by far, was the most common remote office location. There were an estimated 83,300 at-home workers living in a province or territory other than Ontario, but reporting to an Ontario-based employer. Comparable numbers for Alberta were 16,600.

As a share of the total at-home remote worker population of 3.7 million, those reporting to an employer in another province was small at just 5%.

But the numbers have surged. Consider that roughly comparable data from 2016 showed only 12,600 at-home workers reporting to an employer in a different province!

We don’t know how many at-home workers reporting to an employer in a different province have migrated to Alberta or other provinces. They are not necessarily people who came to Alberta and maintained their out-of-province employer (i.e. they may have already been in Alberta and taken a job in another province). And the interprovincial inflows to Alberta are far too large to be explained by this category of worker alone.**

All that said, working from home for an employer in another province appears to be an important and emerging factor driving interprovincial migration in Canada, and something we’ll be keeping a close eye on!

*Employed population aged 15 to 69 living in the provinces who usually work most of their hours from home, excluding full-time members of the armed forces and people living on reserves, and report to work in another province or territory. Due to small sample sizes, numbers are estimates only and should be interpreted with caution.

**The number of in-migrants from other provinces and territories to Alberta totaled 101,700 in 2022 and 110,160 in 2023. Subtracting Albertans who moved to the rest of the country, net interprovincial migration to Alberta was 32,800 in 2022 and 55,107 in 2023.