The end of the relocation boom

Why has job relocation lost its appeal?

MUCH WORK HAS been done in Canada over the last couple years in addressing barriers to labour mobility, mainly in things like accreditation, licensing and certification requirements, all in service of the belief that with more labour mobility comes more opportunities to pursue work in new provinces, helping address regional labour shortages and allowing young Canadians to explore lower-cost-of-living areas.

Click here to view this article in the London Inc. Worklife newsletter

The only problem is, workers appear to be getting tired of the idea of moving just for a new job.

New data from the U.S., and the Bank of America’s mobility index (which is looking at U.S. data, so apply some caution when projecting onto the Canadian market), finds that workers are increasingly less interested in moving for work, noting that the decline in worker mobility is “broad based” and sharpest among millennials and lower-income households, the very demographics that improved labour mobility often proclaims to help. “The slowdown is broad-based,” reads a Bank of America report. “The decline in the number of people moving continued in Q2 2026, and was more pronounced year-over-year,” they wrote.

In Canada, appetites for labour-based relocation remains relatively low. “Just three in 10 Canadians say they would be willing to move to another province if they are offered a suitable job,” a Statistics Canada survey from 2025 found, noting that the rate had barely changed between 2022 and 2025, a period where relocation was touted as a way to find work and lower your cost of living. (Recall the ‘Alberta is Calling’ campaign, for instance.)

That shows up when you ask Canadian employers as well. “Roughly one-quarter of businesses reported difficulties hiring workers from other provinces,” a 2026 TD report found, although it suggested that much of that still came down to uncertainty around licensing. They admit, however, that willingness to relocate remains a major factor that regulations can only indirectly affect. “Reducing regulatory barriers will not, on its own, eliminate every obstacle to labour mobility. Geography, housing costs, employment opportunities, personal circumstances and social ties all shape whether people relocate.”

Story Continues Below

A chaotic (and in some workers’ minds, hostile) job market in North America isn’t helping either. Exposed to many a story of people who moved only to find themselves quickly caught up in layoffs, many workers are becoming far more hesitant to chase jobs across provincial, state or even national lines.

“Workers are less likely to move in order to find employment,” stated a Brookings Institute report last year. “This drop has created concern that workers are less willing to relocate in response to positive or negative employment shocks … Such a trend would have significant policy implications for state and local governments, as well as at the federal level.” Kieran Delamont