Labour economist warns Canada's talent drain is accelerating, and employers are caught in the middle
The engineer who leaves for Seattle. The finance manager who takes a role in London. The newly landed immigrant with a doctorate who can't find work in their field and eventually moves on.
According to new data and analysis, these are not isolated stories, as Canada is losing skilled workers from both ends simultaneously: native-born talent is heading abroad for cheaper pastures, while skilled immigrants are not finding work and failing to stay.
For Chris Worswick, professor of labour economics at Carleton University, the stakes are high even if the numbers seem manageable.
"The concern is there may not be that many of them [leaving], but like the billionaire tax issue in California, you don't need to lose a lot of high earners to lose a lot of tax revenue," he says.
"I there are people moving because of these policies, it could be quite costly."
Canada’s immigration system
A 2025 report from the Institute for Canadian Citizenship and the Conference Board of Canada found that one in five immigrants exits within 25 years, with highly skilled workers departing at twice the rate of less-skilled arrivals.
"Onward migration risk increases with education level," the report states.
"Immigrants with doctorates are nearly twice as likely to leave Canada within 5 years compared to immigrants with a bachelor’s degree."
The occupations with the worst retention – ICT professionals, engineers, finance managers – are precisely the roles most in demand. Plus, the first five years after hire are the most crucial time for retention, as that's when people are most likely to leave.
As Worswick explains, Canada's points-based immigration system was once considered a global gold standard. However, over the past decade, it was gradually displaced by volume, with international student intake and temporary foreign worker programs expanding rapidly without equivalent skill filters.
"That's just led to this extraordinarily large, non-permanent resident population in Canada who are lower-skill, lower-earnings individuals," he says.
The Bank of Canada (BOC) found that if the skill profile of temporary workers in 2023 and 2024 had matched those admitted between 2006 and 2014, their wages would have been 7.5 percent higher. Between 2015 and 2024, the BOC reported, "Temporary workers have become younger, less experienced and more likely to migrate from lower-income countries."
"The concern right now is that we've drifted away from a human capital model of immigration towards one that was less human capital, less skill-based, and much bigger,” says Worswick. “And now we're trying to get back to where we were.”
What an immigration policy reset could mean for HR
The federal government appears to be moving in a new direction. A plan currently under discussion by policy-makers would merge the Federal Skilled Worker Program, the Skilled Trades Program, and the Canadian Experience Class into a single high-skilled stream, prioritizing candidates with high-wage job offers or one year of Canadian work experience in a high-wage occupation, says Worswick.
"If you come to Canada as an international student and you finish your post-secondary program, and then you get hired and work for a year in a high-wage occupation, then you're going to find it fairly easy to get immigrant status and stay," he says.
"But if you do an educational program that doesn't lead to a high-wage job, you're probably not going to find it very easy to stay."
For employers working to recruit internationally trained talent, this shift could open better pipelines, Worswick says.
"If the system switches back to what it was before, then I think we would see more qualified people with [professional] credentials coming in, and that might help with recruitment," he says, adding that the ultimate test will be in implementation.
"If it's the high-wage occupation case, then I think the system is moving in a better direction. If it's the low-wage occupation, probably it's not going to be helpful."
Housing and cost of living in Canada
Worswick identifies housing affordability as a significant, underappreciated driver of talent loss, affecting both Canadian-born workers and skilled immigrants. When infrastructure fails to keep pace with population growth, he says, mobile, high-income workers begin looking for other options – and those options could be overseas or in the States.
"A lot of younger people, people under 50, let's say, feel blocked out of the housing market," he explains.
"And if they're higher-income people, they might be looking to the U.S. or Europe or Asia and saying, 'I can have a lower cost of living there at a higher income, and maybe I should just go.'"
For employers, the implication is practical: compensation and total rewards strategies must account for a labour market in which Canada's most sought-after workers have increasingly competitive options abroad, and many are choosing to take them, says Worswick: "If you can't fill your position, then I think you either raise the wage or invest in technology or capital."
He also urges employers to factor artificial intelligence into their workforce planning – particularly for lower-wage roles that have historically relied on immigration as a supply solution.
"A lot of companies are thinking about revising their hiring practices and their operational practices," Worswick says.
"There may just be a lot less need for certain occupations, or maybe workers using AI are going to become much more productive, and then they can afford to pay a higher wage."
