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… the highly educated advisers of policymakers and executives assume everyone is as keen to leave home as they were

The vacancy numbers also expose all kinds of structural flaws that restrain the labour market from reaching even more impressive heights.

Unfilled positions in Quebec increased by about 21,000, by about 12,400 in Ontario and by about 9,300 in British Columbia; openings decreased from the first quarter of 2018 in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

That condition has existed for a while, suggesting that something is blocking Westerners from seeking out opportunities in central Canada or B.C. The numbers appear to suggest that we have a mobility problem, an issue that a lot of policy thinkers take for granted.

Free-market types assume an unemployed person will seek out a job, no matter what. And the highly educated advisers of policymakers and executives assume everyone is as keen to leave home as they were when they set out to collect degrees and passport stamps.

But academics, while attempting to explain the rise of populism, have discovered that some of us are more committed to our communities than previously imagined. The economies of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal are booming — and they have the house prices to prove it. That means a job in any of those places is only attractive to someone from Saskatchewan if it pays enough to offset the cost-of-living shock. And even then, that person might feel better off in a community where he or she can rely on friends and family for support.

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Four of the 10 economic regions with the fastest-growing job vacancy rates are in Quebec, including the Mauricie, where openings increased by almost 90 per cent from the first quarter of 2018. But you’d have to be comfortable in French — or willing to learn — to live happily in any of them, and you’d be at the back of the province’s notoriously long line for a family doctor. If you are a unilingual Albertan, you might prefer to take your chances on landing a job in Calgary or Edmonton, which are rarer, but still relatively well paid.