Quick Hit: Migration and Proximity to Toronto

In a CBC interview on the London Jobs Now Task Force Report, Alan Arcand of the Conference Board of Canada made these insightful comments:

The Conference Board of Canada says London’s “weak” job growth numbers are partly due to the fact the city isn’t benefiting from a wave of well-paying service jobs appearing in other, larger metropolitan areas…

“The economy is changing in its structure,” said Alan Arcand, the Conference Board of Canada’s associate director of municipal studies.

“When you look at the data over the last five years, you’re seeing a disproportionate share of [high paying service] jobs being created in cities like Toronto, Montreal [and] Vancouver. You’re also seeing some of these jobs being created in proximate to Toronto."

Arcand says there’s been strong job growth in Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo, Oshawa, Hamilton and even Guelph.

“But London is further away from Toronto, so it’s not sharing in those gains.”

He’s bang on. One place this really shows up is in the Toronto Census metropolitan area (CMA) migration data, which I’ve written about in Examining the Exodus out of Toronto and The Toronto Exodus and Regional Economic Development.

Here’s a refresher, using data from Statcan Table 17–10–0136–01. There has been a substantial exodus out of Toronto CMA, particularly over the last few years, to other parts of Ontario:

The biggest demographic group leaving? Kids under the age of 5.

That should be no surprise, given how expensive housing and daycare are in Toronto.

But where are they going to? Statcan Table 17–10–0141–01 has destination and arrival data for 2016/2017. Sure enough, Oshawa, Hamilton, and Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo are gaining the lion’s share of people leaving Toronto, along with “Non-CMA/CA”, which incorporates rural/small towns not within a CMA.

Another way to represent this data is in the ratio of people arriving in a CMA vs. leaving:

I suspect the St. Catharines-Niagara numbers largely reflect the migration of retired people, rather than working-age persons and children. This data clearly indicates how Barrie, Guelph, Oshawa, Hamilton, and Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo are gaining talent and becoming “bedroom” communities of Toronto in a way that Windsor is not, and creating jobs and opportunities in those communities. London is starting to see more migration from Toronto; I expect the city’s “ratio” to increase over the next few years.

Proximity to Toronto explains a great deal of the difference in economic growth between Ontario CMAs. We ignore this factor at our peril.