Labour market needs targeted by latest government campaign to attract workers to Nova Scotia
Population growth is driving immigration policy in Nova Scotia and the provincial government is willing to invest millions to ensure new residents meet the labour market needs that growth is creating.
The province has launched a $2.5 million marketing campaign to increase skilled trades and healthcare workers to support this growth, says Monica Maclean, communications lead on the initiative. The overall goal of the “Live in Nova Scotia” campaign, says the campaign is to increase “top of mind” awareness of Nova Scotia as a great place to live and work. This is a national campaign that will run from to March 2022 and the main target audience is 25- to 40-year-olds. The majority of the budget, $1.8 million, is to purchase advertising through various media platforms: TV, radio, billboards, transit, and online.
The campaign hopes to attract a minimum of 10,000 to 15,000 new migrants each year from across Canada. The Department of Communities, Culture, Heritage and Tourism is also relaunching its successful “Work from Nova Scotia” campaign from 2020 to 2021, which attracted many working professionals that transitioned to remote work.
Statistics Canada says, as of Dec. 16, 2021, Nova Scotia became Canada’s seventh province to reach the population mark of one million people. Halifax Regional Municipality, in particular, has seen an unprecedented rate of growth, even throughout the pandemic, reaching nearly 450,000 people, most coming from overseas. It was voted the second fastest growing municipality in Canada and the number one community to live in the country according to a survey by Macleans magazine. Nova Scotia currently holds a retention rate of around 71 per cent for people who remain in the province for at least five years, falling to about 50 per cent after about 10 years.
Maclean says that while the “Live in Nova Scotia” campaign is focused on internal migration within Canada, their broad efforts to support population growth through international immigration continues through the Provincial Nominee Program and the Atlantic Immigration Program (AIP). The federal government announced in December 2021 that AIP will now be a permanent program allowing more immigrants to come to Nova Scotia.
“We are also working with the federal government to increase our allocation that can be used for employers to hire foreign skilled talent and health care workers,” Maclean says. She remains optimistic about international immigration allocation in the province due to joint efforts from the provincial and federal government.
Targeting labour market needs is a winning strategy, says Shawna Garret, CEO of EduNova.
“Retention rates follow the labour market,” Garret says. “We saw a significant outmigration to Alberta in 2017 due to many students leaving to work in the oil and gas industries.”
Similarly, she says the changing workplace is also a great opportunity for the government to focus on.
“With remote work becoming the norm in many industries, we are going to see a lot of changes to where students are going to work and live and choose to settle. Despite the common challenges of inflation and housing plaguing Canada overall, Nova Scotia is an ideal destination for many.”
EduNova, through its Atlantic Canada Study and Stay program, are facilitating international student retention in the Atlantic provinces by providing support and creating community for international students that want to settle here.
International students have historically not been easy to retain. According to a Statistics Canada report in June 2021, over the past five years the retention rate of international students fell to about 36 per cent in Nova Scotia. However, they are ideal candidates for immigration as they have high qualifications from their post-secondary education and are already familiar with Canada, which helps with integration.
EduNova’s Study and Stay program has received an additional four years of funding from the government and is in the process of putting forward more proposals to help even more international students. Currently, the Study and Stay program helps about 100 to 110 students per year, setting them up for long-term success and permanent residency in Nova Scotia. The new funding will allow the launch of another program, Inspire Immigration, that will enable EduNova to scale up and work with more students per year on a less intensive basis.
Immigration pathways to communities in rural Nova Scotia are still quite small. Almost half of the province’s population lives in Halifax. Garret says that while EduNova works with students from all over the province, it cannot create jobs. It can only facilitate placing students where jobs do exist.
“If they are able to create their own businesses or work from home in the rural areas, that’s wonderful and that in turn benefits these small rural communities in need of more population too,” Garret says.
