Wednesday, March 20, 2013

BC Population Growth to Q4 2012



BC Stats released its quarterly population estimates and BC continues sluggish growth through Q4 2012.

Population growth consists of the following bulk components:
  • Natural increase (births - deaths)
  • Net interprovincial migration
  • Net international migration (including permanent and non-permanent residents (NPRs))
So let's look at how recent quarters look in a historical context, here graphed since 1961 to show longer-term trends (there is seasonality so quarters are best compared to each other, also do not integrate these graphs, the total population is periodically adjusted during census counts):


The most recent Q4-2012 data indicate continued negative net interprovincial migration (2234 net out of the province). The low international component was in big part due to a large net negative NPR component of -5597

Here is the annual graph:


Population growth through fourth quarter of 2012 is below its peak of late last decade, due in most part to net out-migration to other provinces and below-average net international migration. Annual growth has dropped 50% since its recent local peak in 2007, meaning annual population growth in 2012 was about 38,000 fewer than 2007. This will have a direct and negative impact on housing demand in the coming quarters. Interprovincial out-migration is of continued concern, with more people leaving the province for others than arriving.

4 comments:

GF said...

Great work! Always something to look forward to. A suggestion, is it possible to update the X-axis label's most-recent date? Right now one might mistakenly perceive the graph is based up to 2011-Q4 data... Cheers!

jesse said...

Done

GF said...

Great, thanks!
Hmm, still can't figure out where to get Q4 pdf/xls. The BC-Stats site still links to Q3 files...

jesse said...

Cansim tables:
051-0017
051-0037
053-0001