When people ask us why real estate prices in Alberta have weathered the economic storm better than other places, we tell them that the major reason is that people keep moving to Alberta for jobs and opportunities.

This article from the Globe and Mail explains things:

Canada’s record pay gap: Why so many are leaving home for Alberta

MICHAEL BABAD – The Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Nov. 01 2013, 7:41 AM EDT

Record wage gap

Canadian readers can be forgiven if they missed a key statistic – $6 – because they were riveted by that other news story yesterday.

That $6 figure represents a record hourly pay gap, including overtime, between wage earners in the province of Alberta and those in the east.

Mining trucks sit parked at the delayed Barrick Gold Pascua-Lama project in northern Chile. After its second major writedown in just six months, Barrick is trying to wooing back shaken investors by focusing on assets closer to home.

Data released yesterday by Statistics Canada showed the difference in average hourly wages in Alberta and the rest of the country, but for Saskatchewan, widened again in August.

“Note that hourly wages are now nearly $6 less in Atlantic Canada than in Alberta, the widest gap on record, a factor that has contributed to pushing more than 11,000 migrants out of the region in the past year – a major headache for housing markets, government finances, etc.,” said senior economist Robert Kavcic of BMO Nesbitt Burns.

“Even B.C. is seeing the wage gap approach $4/hour versus Alberta, and not coincidentally is also seeing a decade-high net outflow of workers.”

Average weekly earnings, including overtime, rose in Alberta in August to $1,117.68, according to Statistics Canada, the highest in the country but for the Northwest Territories.

Compare that to Nova Scotia, where those paycheques fell to $809.31.

According to a recent study by Toronto-Dominion Bank, Alberta and Saskatchewan were along among Canada’s provinces in drawing in people between 2010 and 2012. All other regions saw people leave home.

Last year, for example, more than 100,000 people flocked to Alberta, while 56,000 left the province. That brings the net inflow to just shy of 46,000, or 1.2 per cent of the population of the home of the nation’s oil industry.

Alberta and Saskatchewan also boast the country’s lowest unemployment, at 4.3 per cent.

“Consistent with general perception, the destination of migrants is increasingly the greener economic pastures of Alberta and Saskatchewan,” said TD economist Jonathan Bendiner.

“Indeed, Alberta, which accounts for 11 per cent of the national population, managed to attract over 100,000 in-migrants (almost one-third of total migrants) from other provinces in 2012 – a higher reading than compared to the heyday of the oil boom in 2005-06.”

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